It feels a very peaceful place, which is hard to marry with the country's history. As we travel through town and country I find it amazing – and almost indecent - that so much suffering can have been swallowed, seemingly so completely. I suppose that between the ambitions of China, Japan, France, Russia and America over the centuries, Vietnam and its people have had plenty practice in dealing with suffering and loss.

Hue is just south of the DMZ, and as a result the city and surrounding area saw some of the worst fighting during the Vietnam War. Hue was pretty much flattened in a drawn-out battle that saw US troops on the east bank of the river attacking the NVA dug into the walls of the old citadel on the west bank. Now Hue is a relaxed tourist town that most stop in as the halfway point down the Vietnamese coast, and a base from which to embark on tours of the DMZ and less harrowing sights such as the Cham-dynasty shrines.

Sarah and I have both been reading Dispatches by Michael Herr – a jarring, poetic piece of journalism written by a man who spent most of the war with troops and photographers on the front lines. Compared to the raw immediacy of the book, though interesting, our DMZ tour seemed sterile and devoid of emotion. Even Khe Sanh Combat Base, site of the famous, pointless American siege fell flat - now it's just a sandy hilltop with a dull museum and a rusting helicopter. The only glimpse we had through the banality of the present day were a few bitter words in the museum guestbook in response to the museum's overtly pro-Communist bias, “'If you're going to tell the story you should tell the truth' Allan Gunner Kent, USMC Vietnam, 67-68-75”

Whilst in Hue we took advantage of our proximity to the coast to do a bike tour to the beach. Yes, sorry mum(s), we hired a moped for the day and took off on a 100km round-trip recommended by Travelfish.com (our new favourite site).

We started at Thuan An beach just 4km from Hue, and when we arrived in the baking sun of high noon the entire beach was deserted. Two kids, each in charge of different car parks ran out and engaged in a frantic bidding war for our business. Once we'd had our fill of the sand and the sea we saddled up and rode south down the coast to the mountains. With the China Sea on our left and a lagoon on our right, we travelled down a spit of land covered by paddy fields and farmers bringing in the first rice harvest of the year. We shared the road with children cycling back from school, water buffalo, ducks and dogs, and weaved around piles of hay that people placed on the tarmac to dry.

After several wrong turns, we found our way to the Elephant Springs at the base of the mountains, and just had time for a quick soak in the rock-pools before getting back on H1 and going home. We coasted into Hue after dark, faces plastered with mosquitoes, one of a thousand other mopeds jostling each other to get home.