Morning bus to Hue Jan 18

The bus was late this morning and when it came it wasn't the sleeping bus as expected but a sitting bus. Off we went for the drive to Hue.
About a half hour out we stopped at a resort for a pickup only to find the five people had become concerned about the bus being late and hired a taxi to go to town. It got straightened around and as a result we were able to stop at a cave while we were waiting for them to come back.
The name of the cave is Dong Am Phu and a Vietnamese man told me that the name has something to do with the Devil. Higher up the mountain there is a Buddhist Pagoda which we didn't have time to visit. The cave seemed quite strange in places.
Going in were some beautiful statues like this one.


Behind them, next to the bridge over a small moat, were some arms sticking up out of the
water.



Looking back outside from the other end of the bridge.

There were many carvings done on the stone walls of the cave.

There were also some strange (at least to me) ones.

Here is an alligator eating a person.

A set of stairs going down behind them goes out of site a long way down. The cave is very large and sounds like it is full of bats up above.

If you look closely you will see two green creatures climbing out of holes in the rocks.

We had no guide to explain anything and I wasn't able to find anything on line about it.

In another area there were some rooms being used for typical prayers and temple activities, at least I am assuming they were typical.

After leaving the cave we drove along the coast and passed an area where China beach is located. It is actually a series of beaches stretching for 33 kms.

There is a lot of new construction going on everywhere.

This futuristic looking building is just one of the buildings in a sports complex.

A well developed area of the beach.

Flower of the day.

We passed through a mountainous area like this for a while and then back to the shore via a very long tunnel.

Most of the houses are relatively new and in good condition. You see very few of the poor shanty types of dwellings in Vietnam.

It looks like they plant these fields of rice by hand, setting out rice plants which they have started growing somewhere else. They walk in the cold mud in bare feet to do it.

This is a street near my hotel.

Another street with some new buildings.

It was raining again this afternoon and I was quite cold when I came in. The hotel sent up some boiling water and I made coffee and wrapped up in the quilt.

Tomorrow I'm off to tour in the rain and the next day too. The forecast is for eight cm of rain the day after tomorrow.