Smaller Scale Vietnam
Trip Start
Jul 27, 2006
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74
93
Trip End
Ongoing
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Hue,
Vietnam
Friday, December 28, 2007
In Hue we visited the Imperial City (Purple City), Forbidden Purple Palace, and the Perfume river. I was super excited to visit the Purple City... can you guess why? But was a little shocked to see that absolutely NOTHING was purple. Despite the disappointment, I still had a great time. Again, I'm not sure why everyone raves about the Forbidden City in China- the Purple city was much bigger, much more beautiful, and had so much more to offer. Unfortunately the majority of the area (palace grounds inside a citadel, inside a citadel of the Imperial City) was destroyed by the war and hasn't been repaired- but it was still neat to roam around the ruins and imagine what it might have looked like once upon a time. Mel and I had a bit of trouble finding the place (let's just say we didn't get enough coffee in our system that morning, because we walked an unnecessary 2 hours... TWICE!) so we unfortunately missed out on the theater and dance show... and then got stuck in a rain storm on the way out.
It was pouring quite hard so we decided to get a ride back into the main part of town. The tuk-tuks all looked a bit small for the two of us to fit (imagine an airplane seat) but one guy would not give up.
The Perfume River
He urged me to get inside, and forced Mel to sit between my legs (piggy back style) then he wrapped his tarp around us and we lost site of the rest of the world. My legs were hanging out the entire time and got a little soaked, and our driver huffed and puffed the entire time trying to show us just how hard he was working in hopes that we'd tip him more. hmph. I don't know about you, but numerous implications that I'm fat don't really lead me to dig deeper into my wallet. .Back in the center of the city we grabbed lunch, and then headed out to buy groceries for our long bus trip up to Hanoi (12 hours.) But we got so far off the beaten track that we actually lost the road. People were coming out of their huts to look at the passing foreigners. A few people followed me around the super market, one man tried to take my grocery bag from me on the street (jokingly, i think...), and a whole herd of cattle (that looked like bison) came charging down the street at us. Melanie and I couldn't seem to stop laughing.
Finally we boarded our SLEEPER bus- the coolest thing in the world- to Hanoi. Each of us had a seat that folded out to a bed, blanket, little desk, light, etc. Mel's a lot like me in the fact that it doesn't take much to amuse her- so we were both tickled pink with our mega score in luck! (keep in mind that all other modes of transportation had consisted of trying to fit together on the back of a scooter, or riding stench filled school vans for hours on end.)
