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  Hue, Vietnam
Thursday, February 21, 2008

Our trip to Hue started with an overnight train ride. It was certainly an experience. Not quite 5-Star, but we didn't expect that anyway. We were on Car 11 of 14. We got on board at about 8:30 PM to find that we were sharing our 4-person berth with a Vietnamese woman who (you guessed it) could not speak a word of English. We managed a brief conversation with her just after we prepared our bunks for the night. The beds were about 6 feet long - that's 5 inches too short for Norm. They provided what appeared to be was a clean sheet, a small pillow, and a blanket. The woman had the lower bunk on the left, Norm was on the lower bunk on the right, and lucky me, I got the upper bunk (above Norm). There was a good size window and a lock on the door - which was what seemed to give us a little bit of comfort knowing we were soon to go to sleep for the night.

After a little walk through cars 10 to 4 we headed back to our 'room' and found a 4th person had somehow jumped into the remaining upper bunk

A Overhead View from the Bridge

. Of course, we had no clue who he was as the lights were out and the woman was already asleep. We were a bit puzzled as the train hadn't stopped anywhere, but figured there was little we could do about it. The woman had already been on the train for about 16 hours. She somehow managed to tell us that she was getting off at around 11 PM so we knew she'd be gone when we awoke in the morning. We climbed into our bunks and tried to catch a few winks. At 11 she and the other fella jumped out of bed and left the room. It was only then that we realized the 4th was one of the workers on the train.

It seemed like a bit of a long night as the worker return to our berth; his cell phone went off a few times; another passanger (an older Vietnamese man) was given the remaining bunk - who was later kicked out and put in another room; followed by 2 new passangers (who we think were Russian) to take the place of the older man and the worker; which now left the 4 of us to sleep the balance of our ride. I suspect we got about 3-hours sleep as we were scheduled to get off the train at 5:30 AM. When the time arrived we quickly got off the train, bought another ticket, and jumped back on the same train. We didn't realize at the time of purchase that we had short-changed oursleves on the journey leaving ourselves about a 3-hour train ride short of Hue.

We bought tickets for seats this part of the trip as we heard that this was one of the most scenic parts of the rail system in Vietnam. And so it was. It was early in the day and a little bit grey, but the beautiful coastline made the morning seem more enjoyable. We treated ourselves to a Vietnamese breakfast - which we shared as we weren't exactly sure what it was. It was something - better than nothing

A Scene from the Fishing Village

.

In Hue we visited the Citadel (old city surrounded by a wall and moat) which was built back in the 1500's. We walked around inside for a few hours and visited a number of different buildings (like the Palace of Supreme Harmony) and artifacts. The large (1552 kg) bronze vessel that Norm is standing beside in the photo was built in 1662. We are currently trying to arrange to get one sent back home to use as a new soup pot!

We walked around a wee bit and found a quaint little barber shop (see photo). We later set a plan for a boat ride on the river the next next morning. We had a big 'dragon boat' to ourselves. Well, not exactly to oursleves, as mother was the captain and her eldest son was fast asleep and rolled up in a blanket on the floor. Younger brother, who we made the arrangements with, tried to wake his brother by giving him a kick or two, but it didn't seem to work. He just laid there for the whole time we traveled. It was kind of like boating with a corpse as he was just there all swaddled in a blanket. Younger brother stayed on shore to try and round up more business for later in the day.

The boat took us to a pagoda and then to a little fishing village

Food Vendors Along Side of the Trains

. During the trip we witnessed a boat dredging up sand from the bottom of the river - via women using their legs to haul up the sand onto the boat (kind of like riding a bike - see photo). I swear, they could give Lance Armstrong a run for his money! All-in-all this little boat ride lasted about 2 hours. Not a great adventure, but a nice calm change from the bus rides. We got a few good photos and then got dropped off at the local market where we bought ourselves some gloves as the weather has gotten chilly. It was about 14 degrees today - a big change from 32.

Tomorrow we are flying to Hanoi at 8 AM. We seem to be running out of time and want to see so much more that we are by-passing parts of the coast to get to a more preferred destination. In Hanoi, we want to venture down to Halong Bay and then up to the far north (close to the China boarder) in the Sapa area where we will hopefully enjoy the likes of the hilltribe people.

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Norm and Our Big Soup Pot	Norm and the 'Corpse' on the inside of the Boat	Off-loading the Sand to the Shore	Our Dragon Boat on the Outside
Peddle Pushers	Sunrise Along the Coast (from the train)	The Barber Shop Quarters	The Coastline Heading North on the Train
The Thien Mu Pagoda	What one might call a 'waterfront property'

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