Hue
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2007
1
176
220
Trip End
Jun 17, 2009
Hue,
Vietnam
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The half a dozen rail lines lay set out in front of us in the dimly lit station yard. Following Phuoc we crossed towards the far side of the yard, lugging cases over the rails. Half way across, a locomotive's headlights switched on and a train started to pull out of the station towards us, blasting his horn. I can't remember what "quick" is in Vietnamese but from the several railway employees' raised voices we got the gist and cleared the tracks as the train picked up speed just behind us and sped off towards China.
Sleeper train coach
Our express from Hanoi to Saigon was waiting and we boarded our first class sleeping carriage. The décor was dainty Alcatraz style in battleship grey and the first class had two bunks per compartment whilst the second class had..... (what's the word for a three tiered bunk? - trunk?).
The four girls settled in one and we were to be joined by a fourth 'person', who turned out to be a young Vietnamese guy, Alex, who had studied in Bournemouth and was another mad keen Manchester United fan. The number of Man U and Liverpool shirts in Asia is astounding, they don't need to play football, just sell the merchandise!
At 11pm our train slowly pulled out of the walled station and along the Hanoi city streets until it was out in the partly lit suburbs. Now martial music and a description of the formation of the Vietnamese modern nation, in Vietnamese and English, was given over the train's public address system. It stopped after an hour and we settled down for a (only slightly) bumpy night's sleep.
Sunday 14th September
I finally woke up properly at about 6.30am and looked out from my top bunk at the countryside going past. Deep mixed forests, small rice fields with water buffalo dotted around them, workers out in the fields cutting the ripe, yellow rice, (maybe before it got too hot), small thatched and tin roofed villages and the increasingly ornate cemeteries set in the rice fields. The fields also had many large egrets around them
Rice fields
. This was becoming an intriguingly interesting country.There was to be a fifteen minute stop at the next station, where the engine would be changed, a regular feature every 400 kilometres. Curious about the loco (no, I'm not a train anorak), I walked forward along the platform, passing stall sellers, waiting relatives and watched a real life wheel tapper moving under the side of the carriages and tapping on the wheel rims. The replacement loco was coming in to be connected - a brand new, state of the art, Siemens diesel electric giant. The rest of the railway may not be modern but the engines were spot on.
Continuing we occasionally crossed a wide river, where sampan boats carried goods from rice to crushed stone.
The train was running an hour late and at 9am we decided to go for breakfast in the canteen car, way towards the front of the train. Walking forwards we passed through the second class coaches and then the seating coaches, where we received curious but friendly looks. Young children were most intrigued by us and a friendly 'Sin Chow' (Hello) always gets some response. Up to now the people have been politely friendly and are certainly not as pushy as in Thailand
Moon dragon
. Arriving at the hard benches and wooden tables of the canteen car, we studied the breakfast menu. 'Noodles and beef soup, Rice and chicken and Noodles and chicken' did not appeal at this time of the morning. There was no sign of bread or fruit, so we settled for a 'Tra Lipton's', go on - you can work it out! It came black or chocked up with the usual condensed milk. I'm starting to think that Donald's theory about losing weight in Asia may not have been wide of the mark after all!
The scenery changed in that we started seeing patches of white sand, even though we were not near the sea, which slowly increased up to football pitch sizes. At 11.30 we had completed the 600kms from Hanoi and pulled into 'Hue' station. Hue used to be the old Emperor's capital of Vietnam, complete with its own forbidden walled city, until Ho Chi Minh changed the capital to Hanoi in 1945. The inside of the city was all but destroyed during the Vietnam war and only the battle scarred walls remain.
Our hotel was a smart older building, just outside the walled city and our comfortably basic room was again furnished in ornate, period mahogany furniture
Moon Festival Dragon
.A taxi took us to a welcome lunch at a local restaurant, during which we had a big thunderstorm and because of the time lost by the storm, we postponed our walled city visit until tomorrow, making the most of our two night stay here.
By mid afternoon it had stopped raining and we sat out and relaxed in the hotel gardens. Children on a bicycle, with a big drum strapped to the front, were pedalling round the area in preparation for tonight's 'Moon Festival', briefly disturbing the quiet atmosphere.
Suppertime - and we walked from the hotel down the side street to be met by a bunch of young (9 year old) kids who intercepted our single file with happy shouts of "Hallo, Where you from? What your name?" I joined in with "Hello" and started to shake the forest of small hands that had had gathered round us, until I felt one small hand inside my pocket! OK guys, pretty neat but game over. Talk about 'Out of the mouths of babes....' I rejoined my team, a little wiser but slightly sadder.
Along the streets packed with (mostly) motorbikes we crossed a long bridge over the citadel moat and I checked all my pockets were zipped up as we joined the throng
Imperial Citadel
. It was just like in the old movies where the crowd is storming the bridge to the bastille. At the other end we dodged bikes and crossed the road, slowly making progress along the packed pavements where people had gathered to watch the displays from the 'dragon dancers', the dragon head and long cape jumping up and down and rhythmically twisting. A lively sight.We reached the restaurant and went upstairs onto a balcony overlooking the street, where we had a view of the celebrations in the street. I ordered 'Shrimp meat with tomato and onion sauce', which when it came was shrimp rolls with a dish of ketchup and onion bits. Definitely one of those 'lost in translation' moments!
After the meal we returned through the (only slightly) less packed streets and enjoyed a reasonable (allowing for the aircon controlled, humid heat) night's sleep.
Monday 15th September
A slightly cloudy but very warm start, as today we were going to catch up on the sightseeing postponed by yesterday's rain. Yes, today we're going on a tour of the city and surrounding area...........
Water lilies
."You're going to do WHAT !!!!! "........................Part 13
..................................................by motorbike !!!!!!!!!
Well, we figured the safest way to get around is to get in amongst the throng, instead of trying to battle against, across or with it.
After a plain juice, bread and jam breakfast (I still haven't got into the spicy beef noodles instead of cornflakes), we went into the hotel courtyard to meet Mr Tuu and his road warriors. The Vietnamese are not permitted to own large motorbikes and the Honda 100 is king around here. Helmeted, we rode out into the Monday morning traffic for our first Hue traffic experience.
Rule 1. Nobody looks, indicates or slows down at any junction. If in doubt, use combination of horn and accelerator in varying proportions to suit the situation in hand. It was like sitting on a rock in the middle of a volcanic lava flow, where other streams enter, mix, merge, flow and then diverge, with the occasional ninety degree bend thrown in for good measure
Inside Imperial Citadel
. Our first stop was the Citadel and Forbidden City, Forbidden because only the Emperor and his retinue were allowed to enter. It was a very traditional Chinese construction, with only the outer ramparts, Emperor's audience hall and a theatre still intact. Reconstruction is slowly taking place, funded by Unesco.
Then it was out of the city, through narrow streets and paths, into the rice fields where, as we drove along the top of the one metre dividing dykes, we passed people cutting the yellowing, ripe rice crop. 'Yellow' cows and calves, munching at the side of the path, didn't flinch as we sped past. We stopped at a tiny village where there was an ancient bridge across the river and bought a drink from the stalls near the market. There is quite an element of self enterprise here and we felt that our tourist presence was helping the local economy.
In the market the stalls were a mix of tourist T shirts and gifts to fresh veg, meat and fish, as two catfish flapped about in a metal bowl. Wandering hens and small chickens completed the scene.
Riding on, the children were coming home from school, they start very early, to avoid the heat and come home after a (long) half day, six days a week
Citadel walls
. This extra traffic caused increased use of the horn as we rode along the narrow paths between houses, regularly passing sleeping dogs, who would disdainfully open one eye in disgust at this disturbance to their slumbers. At one point a black dog was asleep in the middle of the busy path and just didn't stir, as the rest of the world diverted around him and went noisily on their way.We called at a conical hat, the universal peasant headwear, made out of bamboo leaves, that keeps out sun and rain, shop to see a hat making and incense stick making display.
Then it was the 'Tu Duc tomb', a big country estate built outside the city by a long lived emperor, who had also built his own mausoleum. The puzzle is that in order to prevent his enemies finding the body, he was buried 'somewhere near' the site by his attendant eunuchs, who were all immediately put to death afterwards to stop them telling about the location. So he may be there or maybe he not! It was still an impressive site.
A short ride took us to a hill overlooking the 'Perfumed river', so called because near town, all the banks were populated with lotus flowers, so that the emperor could enjoy their fragrance as he took a boat trip
Motorbikin !
. The hill had fortified pill boxes (machine gun emplacements) around it to control shipping on the wide river below, which was busy with boats.In the distance we looked over in the direction of "Hamburger Hill', the site of a serious battle in the Vietnam war. The names were coming back to me as I remembered newspaper and tv reports during the war as a teenager. "Hamburger Hill", we had passed through the "DMZ" (De Militarized Zone) on the train, tomorrow we would go through 'Da Nang", "Khe San" was another battleground in this area. This was like a living history lesson.
Lunch was in a Buddhist monastery, a large, very recently built, traditional temple, teaching and accommodation area. We were served an (overwhelming) amazing array of vegetarian dishes by novices.
Returning towards town we had a boat ride on the Perfumed river, where it started to rain heavily as we arrived at a Buddhist temple, a simple design but richly ornate place with a quiet, peaceful atmosphere. Back on the boat into town and a final 'burn' to reach the hotel. All back safe and sound, some of us even managing to start to keep our eyes open at the junctions
Perfumed river
! This had been a really interesting day out.Although we were enjoying the Vietnamese food we needed something different. 'Homer, what do we fancy for supper?' "Peeeeezzzaaahhh!" So Nim consulted her trusty guide book and found a Vietnamese Italian restaurant. Showered and changed we caught a taxi to the 'new city' over the river bridge, more modern than the 'old city' with hotels and a large array of restaurants. 'Little Italy' was located and the familiar waft of Italian spices welcomed us. Pizzas for four and a bottle of wine settled our 'western' craving and we taxi'd back for another humid night's sleep. A quick check on the tv for world news and we found an episode of 'Shaun the Sheep', fabulous! This had been a really good day.
