Hoi An - Hue - Hanoi
Trip Start
Jan 2003
1
61
200
Trip End
Dec 2003
Hue,
Vietnam
Thursday, April 24, 2003
A comparatively short journey (merely 6 hours for less than 100 miles) and we arrived in Hue. I can't say that Hue held much in the way of expectations and had we not had to go here (it's between Hoi An and Hanoi and every bus stops here) we probably would have missed it. It is however, the ancient capital of Vietnam and is located on the bank of the Perfume River (which smells of fish food). Having said all that, as is often the case when anticipation doesn't exist, I've thoroughly enjoyed our brief visit. It would be fair to say that this enjoyment stems as much due to one Vietnamese family as our own doing.
We stumbled out of our hotel into the cafe opposite (Cafe on Thu Wheels) which is tun, unsurprisingly, by a women named Thu. We spent hours here chatting to the mad but charming Thu and her customers and reading the scriptures (with their awful plays on words - eg 'Just Thu it" and 'Thu-morrow, Thu-morrow....') graffitied on the walls and ceiling. Thu, like 99% of Vietnamese people, has somethig to sell and I'm not referring just to the cafe's produce. She has 10 brothers (and no sisters) who all do motorcycle tours of Hue and the surrounding area. Given all the recommendations in the Lonely Plant, in her books and on the walls:
"If you're coming to Hue with out a clue,
The first thing you've gotta do is find Thu
And if you don't take one of Minh's trips you're a failure
And that's advice from Jan and Jeff from Australia" (it sounds both better and more amusing when said in a stereotypical Aussie accent), we signed up with Minh an another brother.
The trip was great (Minh another knowledgable guide) and we saw an abundance of pagodas, temples, lakes and views that we wouldn't have done normally in addition to learning a lot more about Vietnamese people and their religions and culture.
The last leg of our open bus ticket from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi saw our fears realised as our bus was worse than the one previously. In fact, each bus we took was a degree worse than the one preceeding it. Our first one had space, reclining and comfortable seats and air-conditioning. From Nha Trang to Hoi An the reclining seats went AWOL. Leg 3 saw the padding on the seats disappear and finally tonight we've lost both the air-conditioning and the space. I have in fact spent much of my time on this bus trying to avoid the feet of the Vietnamese man behind me who sticks them over the top and to the sides of my seat. Thank God Hanoi is our last stop or else we may be travelling with livestock!
