Hue

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Thursday 26 June, Friday 27 June and Saturday 28 June

Arrive Hue 10:37.

All pretty relieved to get off the train.
Bright blue sky and 38 celsius.
The Camellia hotel is a spanking new hotel south of the river. Lots more staff than guests and all bend over backwards to help you even if their English is incomrehensible. Much to Max's delight there's a pool on our floor and a row of online computers in the lobby. Much to our delight the AC is awesome....

First impressions off Hue are of a clean,quiet and leafy city.
Have a traditional Hue Emperial dinner on the terrace of a colonial villa in the old part of the city, stunningly presented in the form of animals, see photos!

Do a half day guided tour, taking in two regal tombs belonging to the Nguyen dynasty about 15 kms away. First one was the Minh Mang tomb, he was the second king of the dynasty. He had 200 concubines and over 500 children! Horny bugger. The second tomb was Tu Duc's. He was considered the best king during the dynasty, very intelligent and caring. Smallpox as a child left him sterile so he adopted some of his brother's kids to keep the line of heritage going. Our guide gives us a good bit of historic background and explains the symbolism in the layout and architecture of the tomb enclosures. We finish off with a tour of the Citadel,part of the Imperial City which spanned an enormous area of about ?m2. Max and Alex get an elephant ride to break the monotony.
Most but not all the buildings were destroyed during various fases of the war for independance. Some have been beautifully restored and some are in the process of being restored but it'll probably take forever.
The boys were seriously templed out by now and we were all wilting in the 37 degree sunshine so we had lunch at the hotel's european restaurant- we must have been their first ever customers. Orderig was chaotic and we realised how little they understood when Max was served a frozen Margerhita instead of a pizza margerhita!!

Explored the market in the afternoon, a huge maze of tightly packed stalls selling anything and everything. Soon got sick of the tiresome sellers so walked to a nearby shopping mall.

Spent Saturday visiting the Ho Chi Minh museum, trying to get in to a closed war museum and taking a boat trip up the Perfume river to the famous Thanh Mu pagoda.

Left early on Sunday, had tickets for the 8 a.m. train to Danang. The route by train between Hue and Danang is considered to be one of the most beautiful stretches in SE Asia. Ok, it was nice enough but the train was so disgusting by this stage ( it started out in Hanoi) that it was difficult to appreciate fully!

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