A Rapidly Fading Huế

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The train from Hanoi was, in all honesty, something we had never done before. I'm not the kind of person to pretend I've got an overnight train in Vietnam when I haven't really.

Each compartment (because we got the cheaper 'hard sleeper' - hard presumably meaning difficult as opposed to solid) contained six people, and there was no sign of curtains to separate one bed from another. I could have made a social faux pas when I decided I was too hot and stripped down to my boxers, despite the locals sleeping fully clothed. I thought it would be ok - I covered myself with a grubby blanket, only to wake at 3am to find I had kicked it off and the man on the opposite side was staring at me. In fact, I hope it was because of the social faux pas and not some other boundary being mutually passed.

An annoyance was the issue that the beautiful outside view was spoilt by unopenable and mostly translucent windows. All photos were spoilt with white smears and reflections. Well, most of them. I managed some beautiful ones - part of the reason I wanted to travel down this part of the world in the first place.

The train arrived very quickly. In fact, it was instantaneous. One moment it was travelling very close to the destination, the next it had come to a stop. We had decided to leave Hue that evening, for the sake of an extra one in Hoi An, apparently with much better night life. As it turned out, the last bus for this place left at 2pm. The time was approaching 12.

By time we had booked the bus, gone into town, hired some bikes and had lunch (I had a build yourself BLT, that I'm sure should have been cheaper since sandwich assembly would come to around 1/3 the price of the whole), the time was nearly 1.

One hour? No problem.

What commenced was a rapid tour of the town of Hue, following a walking tour leaflet seized from the restaurant. Holly took the post of navigator, myself, photographer. I managed to snap many a wonky photo of passing points of interest. This included a bridge, a moat, some walls, some gates and a flagpole. All very cultural - and more so I'm sure for those people with (god forbid) a whole day to spend there. For us, we were and still are happy to have forsaken a night there to spend longer in Hoi An.

This led us back to the bus. Unfortunately no time to wander along the promenade - or any time to cool down before a lovely bus journey. Further establishing our suspicions that air-conditioned buses are a waste of everybody's time, this bus had a functioning system but of course was no match to the combined forces of mother nature's incredibly hot day and a bus full of sweaty people (myself included). I chanced placing my perspirating body across an unfortunate member of the other side of the bus in order to snap some of the quite amazing view from that side. I have to stress, I was very hot and I had been wearing this shirt all of the previous day and this one - i.e. not particularly pleasant. For those of you whom haven't been travelling, this is quite a common occurence and not frowned upon at all, apart from those people who experience this sort of breach of personal space.

As was starting to become a very pleasing frequency in Vietnam, the view was incredible. Danang (where we did not have time to stop) was a medium-small town that looks like it's making the transition from industrial centre to tourism capital. Many loading cranes around the dock are offset by hotels and travel agencies springing up (I mean actually literally) from the ground, which is all complimenting the gorgeous bay the city is surrounded by. The old road apparently had to travel all the way round the bay and over the hill (Laos style), whereas the new highway traverses across the middle of the water and through an amazingly long tunnel, cutting off (I guess, based on travel in Laos) around two hours.

This road led us (quite literally) to Hoi An. This city is famed for it's abundance of tailor shops and local delicacy called Cao Lao (some variety of noodles).

I'm sorry for the infrequent and very late updates, there has been lots of time for being holidaying fools and not so much for updating travel diaries. Rest assured (for all those fictional people eagerly awaiting the next entry) I will get up to speed, whenever it may be.

Till then, xiao!

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Photos

Flagpole
For something historical I don't know.

Boats in Danang Bay
Grubby windows included free