The marvellous thing about travelling is all the advice that everyone you stumble across is desperate to bestow.

It has taken me a few weeks to hone the art of tuning out the advice and sizing up the person.

If they seem like my kind of traveller, I take it on board. If they seem like a drunken party animal with a taste for KFC, I smile and let my mind wander.

No one really recommended the little place called Hue, so I was determined to check it out. It was a passing through place for most people, hence why the hostel was quiet and calm when I arrived off the overnight bus, (greatly appreciated after 13 hours of horn tooting which infiltrated my short strange dreams)!

I drank my fill of free tea and dived off to explore, taking the brave step of hiring a bicycle. It was one pound for the whole day and it was the best thing I could have done!

The motorbikes weaved around me as pedalled along the dusty roads of the Old Quarter, which lies across the river from the tourist scene.

Here, many people live on wonky wooden boats moored on the river, hanging their washing in the trees and squatting in the shade to cook their meals.

There are funny little wooden houses around every corner, and in the centre of the maze is a beautiful and crumbling citadel - The Forbidden Purple City - which is all the more magical for its natural state.

There were more weeds and cracks than tourists but it was wonderful. My poor legs were a-weary by the end of the day, but it had enabled me to find the curious churches hidden among the houses, and even prompted a chat with a friendly Vietnamese guitar teacher who learnt English from an Alan Shearer annual!

While in Hue, I jumped on an organized tour in order to get out to see the tombs of various Emperors which lie outside the city around idyllic lakes and gardens.

The sites were wonderful and the tour was manageable: Mr Song was our happy guide who sung cheesy love songs into his echoey microphone as we bounced along the roads. On the plus we got a decent free lunch and I managed to lose Mr Song at most of the sights.

I was sad to leave Hue but time presses and I had heard that the train to Danang is a treat, and I'm a sucker for a good train ride!

As the only foreigner (and non boiled egg/yoghurt/rice-eating passenger) on the train I got surprisingly few glances, as most people were too busy hanging out the window admiring the view, and what a view!

To the right was jungle, and to the left was endless glittering sea under a blue sky. My arrival in Danang was, sadly, less serene.

The hostel I hunted no longer exists (that’s what happens when your guidebook is 2 years old!) so I lost about a stone in sweat hunting for a place to stay.

I succeeded, and had a lovely afternoon walking the streets of Danang, which seems to be loaded with shops selling either furniture or car engines and pavements covered with fruit stalls or small ladies selling baguettes and laughing cow cheese!

I discovered the sea front just as the sunset and watched the youngsters playing football under a pink sky. It was a lovely moment in a rather strange day.

But today I am onwards once again. Only 5km South to a part of China Beach where I can see the Marble Mountains and chill on the sands for the day, before onwards again. So much to see and the time is ticking away!