Above are a few pictures taken from our trip through Vietnam in 2008. The top picture is China Beach (outside of Hoi'An), the middle picture is to give an idea of the bikes we rode (mine was the same as Sophia's; obviously hilarious), and the bottom picture is from outside of Hue. Outside of Hanoi and Saigon, we rented bikes frequently as a means to get around without having to deal with tour operators, motorcycle taxis, or shitty rental cars.
During our stay in Hue we rode around to a number of imperial tomb sites in the area. The largest of these was about 12km outside of the city, and to get there by bike requires a different route from the usual tourist approach on boat. As the guide books maps were spotty at best, we figured we could use Sophia's navigational skills to sort it out as we got closer. After a pretty long time we began to worry we had gone too far; the road had more hills than our bikes could really handle, and there was really no sign of (or for) the site. Then a woman on a motorcycle pulled up and asked if we were headed for the imperial tombs. She guided us back to her home/rest-stop along the road where there was a path that led to the tombs.
We stopped at her rest stop and had a drink. She informed us that because we had passed the turn off for the tombs, if we had kept riding we would have ended up at the Laos border. So, we almost accidentally invaded Laos by bicycle. As we walked along the path to the tomb there were rice paddies (see photo) and a wall that marked the border of the tomb. Soon a little kid appeared and took us to a hole in the wall we could crawl through to avoid paying the entrance fee, but we'd have to pay him. We ended up going to the the main gate.
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