January 25, 2015.  Vietnam has had as much as 60 percent inflation in recent years.  To buy a Rav4 vehicle here, it would be $90,000 US dollars, in cash.  They do not deal in credit here.  Someone asked our guide how much he paid in taxes.  He said that he didn't pay taxes because he deals in cash like everyone else.  He said that a person could walk in and pay $100,000 for a car with cash and no one would question it.

Today we drove from Hue to Hoi An going through DaNang.  We went over a mountain pass that has a tunnel but our bus chugged up it so we could see the view.  There was a supply station on the Ho Chi Minh trail at the top.  A wedding couple was having their wedding photos taken there.  Weddings are a huge business here.  They last anywhere from 3 days to a week.  A large wedding has 800 to a thousand guests.  Bon told us that some couples fly all over the world to have their pictures taken, spending between $30,000-$40,000 to do it.  We must have passed 10-12 weddings today.  The fortune tellers thought it was a good day to get married apparently.

In DaNang, we stopped at China Beach, where our military landed.  Beautiful sandy beach so we all went to wade in it.  Big waves.  I was standing with my back to the sea taking a picture of Stella when a big one came in and drenched me up to my back pockets, along with a lot of others.  We were walking back to the bus and someone said "that must be why the red flag is up."  The one we all trooped past to get to the water.  The Vietnamese call it something else and can be fined if they put China Beach in print.  They call the ocean here the Eastern Sea, not the China Sea.

It was so hazy today that we didn't get much of a view.  But we finally saw blue sky.  It's quite a bit warmer here and humid.  We have stayed in four star hotels on this trip and this one is no exception.  All the rooms even have doorbells and a light outside the door that signifies that the room is occupied.  Vietnam is like Europe in that you have to put your room key in a slot inside the door for the lights to come on.

We went to the Old Quarter for lunch and then did an orientation walk.   A cruise ship was in so the narrow streets were very crowded.  From 3-9 pm, no motorbikes are allowed in the Old Quarter which is nice.  Stella's knee was hurting badly so we opted out of the group dinner and ate in the hotel  restaurant.  Here's a tip, don't order pizza in Vietnam.   It was edible but not very tasty.