A different way in Hue

I've been meaning to say this for a while now and I think the time has come for me to spout off again.  So here goes: by and large, organised daytrips and tourist restaurants suck. (You'll probably soon decide to stop visiting this blog because all we seem to do is complain about things!)

01 Danang Station waiting room (exciting stuff!)

Actually, after the disappointment of being stuck in Dalat for days we've been having a really good run. Hoi An was a great antidote with by and large excellent food and a calm way of life with a minimum of hassles. We started off our days with the most perfect pain au chocolat you can imagine (from Tam Tam cafe), then spent our days leisurely walking the streets, one minute nipping into an old 18th century dwelling, the next checking on how Rach's clothes were coming along, and finishing each day with a glass or two of delicious Bia Hoi ('fresh beer'), which at just 10 pence a glass is by far the cheapest beer we have had - or indeed will have - on this entire trip.

However, in spite of this apparent bliss I decided I needed to add another UNESCO notch to my belt (it obviously wasn't enough for me that Hoi An is itself one big UNESCO site).  I wasn't bothered about all the pottery factories and rice carving collectives that were available as add-ons to the the My Son Cham sanctuary tour.  Nor was I bothered about coming back to Hoi An by boat.  I just wanted transport to My Son and enough time to take in the ruins before the return journey.  After a little research it seemed the choice was either to pay 20 $ for my own private taxi or 4 $ for the tour which, according to the lady I bought the ticket from would allow me between two and two and a half hours at the site.  So of course I went for the latter.  Do I need to tell you about the 45 minute wait (in 3 different locations) before the bus finally left on the morning of the tour?  Do I need to describe how, having arrived at My Son, the whole tour bus load of people had to be ferried laboriously by jeep to the actual ruins? Or how there then turned out to be only about 45 minutes left to explore the site by myself - with the ticking clock of the return journey against me?  No - you could have guessed all that the moment I told you it was an organised tour that cost only 4 $.  So, all organised tours suck.  And we're not doing them any more. Now, about those 'tourist restaurants'..."Wait a minute. Rach! quick, come and take over - I need to put my head back in cold water - the steam's started coming out my ears again!" (T)

Ah yes, tourist restaurants.  Last night we walked out of one, halfway through our meal, something I've often fantasised about doing, but never had the guts to do. We chose the restaurant, Sakura, because its set menu sounded interesting and varied, and was quite expensive at 6$ (it's expensive by Vietnam standards) so we thought it should be good at that price.  The menu was advertised as being: baby corn and crab soup, Hoi An spring rolls, sauteed shrimp, beef in lemongrass, sauteed vegetables, steamed rice, Hoi An noodles, fresh fruit platter.  We ordered one of those, which we planned to share, and one sauteed aubergine with minced pork.  It started off not too badly - the soup didn't taste of very much, but it was pleasant enough.  But then it started to go off - the next 3 items came on one plate; 2 small greasy spring rolls with an unidentifiable filling, 2 lukewarm deep fried things containing minced shrimp (not at all what the description sauteed shrimp conjures up), and one tiny, cold skewer of beef that tasted of nothing, certainly not lemongrass.  Then the aubergine with pork arrived and was cold.  We sent it back. It came back hot, but at the same time the set menu sauteed vegetables arrived (looking, as Tim so correctly surmised later, like leftover Chinese takeaway) cold.  It was at this point that we decided enough was enough.  We were not willing to waste precious calories on such joke food, and on a restaurant that has so little respect for its customers.  We called over the manager to tell him we were leaving, and why.  The main reason we gave was that the food was cold and clearly not freshly cooked, and his answer was that he could heat it up.  That kind of reply (which we have had before in other places) just makes me see red, that they can't, or won't, see that the whole point is the food should be hot in the first place, and if you have to tell them to heat it up for you they've got no business running a restaurant.   So we left roughly half of what the bill should have been and walked out.  Walking out felt good - good to uphold our standards and not accept awful food, and good to stand up to restaurants who take their customers for a ride.  We then went down the road to a lovely, but much more basic, restaurant where we'd had lunch the previous day, Phone Cafe, and filled up on delicious (and hot!), freshly prepared food.