Hoi An to Hue

Up early again and got my first Sleeper bus to Hue city, former Imperial capital and home to a big fancy citadel layed out in the style of the Forbidden city in China. I wasn't sleeping on the bus but judging by the smell other people had been. I climbed over a few sleeping Vietnamese into one of the remaining bunks and settled in for the 4 hour trip. The guidebook blurb said that it rains quite frequently here and they weren't lying. The first rain I've seen since I left, it was lashing when we arrived and I got drenched searching for a hotel. I ended up where I'm staying simply because I couldn't walk any further down the road because it was flooded. Anyway I've got a few days to spend here before catching a train to Hanoi. Walking around town at midday, still sleepy from the bus this morning, I heard a "Hello!" from behind me and thought it was just another Cyclo or Motorbike guy in need of fending off. Instead it was a guy who insisted that he wasn't out to sell me anything and that he just wanted to speak some English. Fair enough thinks I. After asking me where I was from he looked really shocked to find out I was Irish. Now I'm still not great at distinguishing between fake really shocked and real really shocked, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and he proceeded to tell me that he has family living in Ireland (in Dublin 11 and in Cork) and this was such a great coincidence to run in to me like this on his "Temple day" for his family (which he tried to explain was as important as New Years but was on a different day for different families). He reassured me again that he wasn't trying to scam me and that he was waiting for his daughter to finish school and could he buy me a couple of beers and just chat for a while. Me with nothing better to do took his offer of a helmet and jumped onto the back of his scooter and whizzed down to the end of the road and into a local eatery. Here he bought some beers and food and said how amazing this all was to meet and explained how his sister or aunt or something had gone to England and then to Ireland to meet an Irish guy. After a few Slainte's he insisted on paying and I gave him my email address and asked if I could take his photo but he was quite firm in saying he couldn't have his photo taken on this day because it was his "Temple Day". Suspicions raised..We went to leave and he said if I liked I could reciprocate and buy him a bottle of something in return. I thought fair enough if its just some symbolic beer or local drink, but we drove to some place where he asked the lady to bring out a bottle of Whiskey that, by my quick calculation, would have cost more than 20 euro. Suspicions raised again..I told him there was no way I could buy it, that I didn't have the money, at which point he said he knew where there was an ATM. I really didn't know what to do..I soo wanted to believe his story but there was no feckin way I was going to an ATM for him. He then asked if I had any foreign money I could give him to bring back to his wife and I showed him a Thai bill I had left over, but he said he couldn't take it because it was green..? In the end I did give him a little money before he drove me back as he had sprung for the food and beers. I'm still trying to decide if the whole thing was a scam or whether he actually does have Irish connections and just presumed that I, as a foreigner, was some rich bastard. I hope its the latter.