Hue - Imperial Capital
Trip Start
Oct 30, 2005
1
58
122
Trip End
Ongoing
Hue,
Vietnam
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Back on the bus, there was a quick stop at the bus office at Danang before it continued to Hue. We had decided to catch the train from Danang to Hue, which was meant to be one of the most scenic parts of the railway in Vietnam
At The Bridge (1)
. We jumped off the bus and caught a taxi straight to the train station to try to get tickets. We had luck, but still had a few hours before our train, so back into another taxi (with all our luggage) we headed for the main attraction of Danang - The Cham Museum (Cham = ancient civilisation in Vietnam). We dumped our packs with the guard and wandered around for a while. It was quite interesting and contained various conerstones, statues and altars that had been removed form the ruins around the country (much better than sitting at the train station for a few hours anyway).Still, can't dilly daddy too long. Having a bit of fun to find a taxi back, we made it to the train station ok, and although a little late, our train was wonderful... airconditioning! Quite modern in the carriage, with flat screen videos playing to keep the locals amused until we started to pass the coastline. The tracks got so close to the edge at times and the view was stunning. Such lush greenery of the forests and suddenly the amazing blue of the coastline. We were glad we took the scenic option over the bus, and it was great to be hanging out with locals again too.
The train arrived late afternoon in Hue, and after our taxi driver tried all his tricks to overcharge us (pity for him we already knew them all), we settled into our guesthouse, run by a charming old couple and their daughter, who only spoke a little english, but made our stay very homely
At The Bridge (2)
. Christie was already getting cuddles from them after only a couple of hours. We had a quick walk around the town before retiring for the night.Hue, famous for the so-called "Perfume River" (not quite sure what the perfume is, but it's definately not worth bottling!) put on its best weather for us the next day. Actually it was way too hot. Really hot. We had decided to walk across the river to visit the old Citadel, but wasn't a quick journey and when we arrived, we were already worn out from the sun. The Citadel was interesting for a while, but a little too big, especially after Glenn wanted to see it all. We had lunch at a famous local restaurant run by a deaf/mute owner, but more interesting was the fact that surrounding this restaurant were two others with almost identical names also with deaf staff. This act of copy-cating the success of another restaurant or business is common in Vietnam, and aims to confuse or trick tourists into thinking that it is what their guidebook recommended. Still the food was much less interesting and the staff trying to sell us paintings didn't help either.
We did met a nice English couple there though, doing a similar travel thing to us and we spent a few hours reflecting and sharing stories. Venturing back into the heat we visited a museum (military and archeology)
At The Bridge (3)
. It was a bit lame, but Glenn liked the "boys toys" tanks on display outside.The following day we hired two "moto" drivers to take us to the sights we were interested in. First stop was the Thien Mu Pagoda, quite pretty, but also with a link to history was where the monk came from that burnt himself to death in Saigon as a protest to the war (famously photographed). Around Hue, there were many ancient tombs of Emperors and we visited two, the Minh Mang tomb, very extravagant with ancient chinese architecture and the Thieu Tri Tomb, a tomb in ruins. To finish off the trip we went to the Thank Toan Bridge, another Japanese bridge, but without the tourist fair of the one in Hoi An. This was quite impressive, more so with the local kids hanging out on it, trying to evade our cameras like a game. Even more impressive was the motorbike ride through the rice fields to reach it. Such vivid healthy fields with workers tending to them really made it a special sight.
That evening we had hoped to catch the night bus to Hanoi to make up a bit of time, but unfortunately the bus was full. So we had an extra day to catch up on the boring stuff before taking the last leg on the teeny bopper tour bus to Hanoi that evening.
