Going a-"Hue"

Just to clarify, you pronounce it "Hway", not hue as in a colour. Glad we have that out of the way.

It seems that this is the spring of travel. Two weeks ago it was Cao Bang, this past weekend it was Hue, and in three weeks I'm headed for the mountains and a town called Sa Pa. After that, who knows what. Though it is still spring here in Hanoi, Hue was very much in summer mode.

Planning my trip to Hue was difficult and filled with logistical problems due to us procrastinating in planning. Initially I planned to go with Nathan, and up until the day before I left that was going to be the case. He was in charge of getting us train tickets and I was in charge of the hotel. I emailed one hotel and was told that they had only one room left and not for the number of days that I wanted as there was a festival going on and the long weekend generally made everything busy. Nathan fared not as well. We had hoped to take the night train on Friday and get into Hue on Saturday. Nathan could only get the night train on Saturday, which coincidentally worked out for when the room I had got us was booked. However, he could only get us night-bus tickets for the return trip which meant a longer, more cramped trip. Despite all these setbacks, our trip was arranged and we waited for the day to come. One week or so before the trip Nathan fell ill and is still completely out of commission. It wasn't anything major, but it was enough to prevent him from going. Thus, I boarded the train by myself and headed to Hue alone.

The train ride was uneventful. I had the bottom bunk in a three level bunk bed which was nice. The air conditiong made the car cool, but not too uncomfortable. I left Hanoi at 11 in the evening and arrive in Hue around 11 in the morning the next day.

The first thing I noticed about Hue is that the sun was shining, which never happens in Hanoi. The second, is that it was really, really hot. After checking into my hotel, I decided to go check out the citadel. Hue was the capital of Vietnam and the home of the final royal dynasty, the Nguyen. The old Thang Long citadel in Hanoi may be nothing but a foundation, but the citadel in Hue is largely intact. The outer walls are massive and surround a portion of the city. Within these walls are another set of walls which enclose the Forbidden City where the king lived.

 Once inside this second set of walls there are palaces and other such buildings. The whole area is massive and takes a while to see completely. Some places were quite crowded, others were empty and I had them to myself.

Not all the buildings have been restored

A curiously modern tennis court in the venerable city

This fountain sprayed cool water, which was glorious

 Due to the extremely sunny conditions, I managed to develop a wonderful sunburn in just under an hour. The next day I hunted down some sunscreen, along with a motorcycle.

Just outside of the city is are the tombs that the kings were buried in. In order to get there, you either need to join a tour, hire a boat to take you, or find a motorcycle. My hotel was gracious enough to find the latter and I drove off with a map in search of tombs. I was just about out of the city when a lady pulled up beside me. She asked me where I was going and where I was from. It turned out that she is a farmer and lived quite close to the more important tombs. She offered to guide me there and I accepted.

Some of it reminded me a bit of Ankor

The servants entrance

The tombs were quite cool and afterwards I went to my guides tiny little house for tea and pineapple

 After returning to Hue and eating lunch I went in search of the Thien Mu pagoda, which was on the other side of the river from where I was staying. I've seen so many pagodas in my time here in Hanoi that they all start to look the same. Still, this one was neat in it's own way. It is an important place in Vietnamese history due to a certain monk in the Vietnamese war. During the war the South Vietnamese government was quite anti-Buddhist and to protest this a monk drove to Saigon and sat down in the middle of the street and lit himself on fire.

That evening I was invited by Thanh (pronounced Tang), a girl who works at the hotel that I was staying at, to go check out the food at the festival that was going on.  We went there with two of her co-workers and while the food did look delicious, we instead opted to eat noodles at a street stall as it was much cheaper.

The next day I was joined by Thanh in going to a famous covered bridge just outside of town. By that point I had done pretty much everything there was to do in town, so after that we went down to the beach. I wasn't prepared for spending the day at the beach and Thanh was not very keen on spending time in the sun so I got my feet wet and we went back to town.

Thanh and I

SO MANY DUCKS!

The ride home was not very enjoyable. As I mentioned before I was stuck taking the sleeping bus back to Hanoi. Here in Vietnam they have buses outfitted with bunk beds so you can actually sleep properly. While this sounds great, reality is not nearly so nice. The beds are the right size for a Vietnamese person, which is about a foot shorter than what would be nice for me. I lucked out in that I had the top bunk with extra leg room above the toilet, but it was still not quite comfortable. Additionally, the bus blasted air conditioning until the bus was cold enough that you could see your breath. Having been in incredibly hot Hue, I was not dressed for this and so the 15 hour trip was unpleasant to say the least.

All in all though, the trip was really fun. It was too bad that Nathan couldn't come, but it was still a great trip.