The average age was just nnnnnineteen
Trip Start
Sep 19, 2002
1
93
129
Trip End
Sep 22, 2003
Hue,
Vietnam
Monday, May 19, 2003
20th - When in Vietnam you obviously can't avoid the war so we decided to take an organised tour of the DMZ (demilitarised zone)to see the sites. At most of the sites there was very little to see as the Americans blew up their bases when they left. The most interesting base was the Ke Sanh base where thousands of US troops were holed up. There was a very small museum with photos of the war all with very biased Vietnamese explanations. Reading the guest book this had upset a number of returning US veterans but I'm sure both sides bent the truth when telling their story. The other highlight of the tour was a visit to the Vinh Moc tunnels. These were built by the vietcom to avoid the americans. Many familes used to live down here for months on end in very cramped conditions. 17 children were even born in the tunnels. We were led in by a guide who then proceeded to leave most of us down the tunnels! As these tunnels were used as long term living quarters they weren't too small but I still had to crouch all the way round. We eventually found our way out of another exit by the beach - there were 12 exits in total, although not all are still open. The biggest excitement came on the journey back to Hue. The coach was speeding along in the middle of nowhere when there was an almighty bang and we screeched to a halt. One of the tyres had totally blown out. The drivers had a look and then started driving slowly down the road until we came accross a house with a few old inner tubes outside (Kwik Fit it wasn't!). A bloke then appeared with the smallest spanner you have ever seen and started to take off the wheel. Thinking this would take forever us and another couple went down the road to get a coke. When we came out we found the coach had already driven off! Luckily someone realised we were missing and they came back for us.
21st - Took a cyclo to the Citadel and the Fordidden Purple City. This is a huge complex of buildings built in the 1800s to house the Emperors. Unfortunately most of the building were destroyed in the various wars, although they are making efforts to rebuild the site slowly. We hired a guide to take us around which was well worth it. We learnt that one of the Emperors had over 500 concubines which is pretty impressive even by my standards! Apparently he had never even met some of them! One night one of these "wives" he had never met sneaked into his room when he was asleep and kissed him. Annoyed at being woken he had her beheaded - beats divorce any day. The funniest thing of the day was that a group of cheeky Vietnamese were too tight to get their own guide and so followed us round the whole time listening to our guide! Near the end they even had the nerve to start asking questions. This really wound LJ up and when it came to the end of the tour she tried demanding money from them and told them how rude they were. (we never got a penny out of them of course)
22nd - The Lonely Planet actually came up trumps for once. It recommended a motorbike tour of Hue so we gave it a go. We joined up with 3 Irish girls and all got our own motorbike chauffeur and we sped off into the countryside. This was a great way to get out and see the country. We sped along roads, alleys and at one point a dirt track through a graveyard. We also went right through the middle of a market on the motorbikes. This needed special driving skills - i.e. bend your mirrors out the way and open the throttle with your thumb on th horn. We also stopped off to visit some of the Emporer's Tombs and some pagodas. At one Pagoda we arrived in time to see all the monks doing their chanting thang as they prayed after their lunch. The guides were quite funny as their English was a little lacking. LJ's driver could only say "hot", "buffalo" and "luvely jubbly". Mine could only say "cemetary"!? In the evening we met up with some people we had met in Sapa and had a few beers before going on to a nightclub. This was a really weird experience. The beers here were over double the normal price but I calmed down when I realised they were still only 65p a bottle. We were also given platters of fruit for free. The club was about as big as our frontroom but there were 15 members of staff on duty to the 10 punters. The staff were the only ones dancing (in a sort of strange Eighties fashion). After one drink we could cope no longer and walked back to the hotel.
