Hustled in Hue

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We were told that we would be in Hue around 7-8am. We rolled into the station around 12pm and we hobbled off, a little crippled from so many hours in a bed that was definitely two short and two narrow for a westerner. We found ourselves a taxi to take us to town and once again got ripped off – it seems all tourists have to pay a ridiculously increased taxi fare when they enter a new city – a kind of welcome present maybe?

We soon found ourselves a hotel for $9 – a big room with the usual air con, wifi, TV etc. but this time with a bath tub 😊.

We took a walk around and grabbed some food at a near by restaurant, went back to the hotel for a bit then took a walk along the river and across the bridge to explore.
We only had one full day in Hue so we headed out early to the river to book a boat to see some of the temples and royal tombs along the river. Neither of us were in the mood for a group tour so we got a private boat and set off down the river. The boat was owned by a family and they all came along, mum, dad, two daughters and a young son. So after 5 minutes the mum hands us a menu to pick what we want for lunch. When we asked her how much this would cost us she pretended not to understand us until it was clear we weren’t going to make a choice without knowing the price. Of course it was ridiculously expensive and when we continuously declined she kept going lower and lower but we really just didn’t want the lunch. She then proceeded to show us postcards, paintings and t-shirts that she thought we might want to buy – again, no thanks!


So after Thien Mu Pagoda the family dropped us at the side of the river to visit Minh Mang tomb. Except this was not Minh Mang, just some crappy little place that wasn’t remotely interesting in the middle of nowhere. Plus Minh Mang, we saw form our map, was way further down the river – we presume they were trying to save fuel and time by trying to make out this place was what lonely planet describes as “perhaps the most majestic of all the royal tombs” – nice try love but we’re definitely not that stupid.

We continued on to the tomb of Tu Duc which was a really pretty place but really crowded with tourists. Once back on the boat we had an argument with the lady, as we told her we wanted to go to Minh Mang and she tried to tell us we had already been. Eventually she gave in as we would not, and took us to the tomb. We saw maybe only 5 other tourists at this place which made the experience much more enjoyable.

The boat dropped us off at the citadel and we took a look around but were not that impressed – maybe we were still in a bad mood from people trying to rip us off all day…
After a few hours back at our hotel and a very much needed cold bath we headed back out for dinner at a Japanese place, JASS, which is also an organisation that cares for street kids – so we could be full and feel good about ourselves.

We had decided to take the bus to Danang the next morning and from there take another bus to Hoi an. It should be pretty simple. We checked out and had a brief confrontation with the old guy at the desk who told us we had not paid for our laundry – but we definitely had. He finally let us go and we flagged down a taxi straight away and asked him to take us to the main bus station. We were halfway there when Angelo suddenly realised the hotel still had our passports. Oopsie. We turned around to go get them making the taxi ride rather more expensive.

We arrived at the station and went inside to get a ticket and realised the muppet taxi driver had dropped us at the railway station. Great stuff!! We walked for a while in the direction we thought the bus station was before realising we were lost. We were shown a map and realised that we were completely the wrong end of town and so had to get another taxi to take us to the actual bus station. We then got hassled by the bus lady to buy a ticket at double the price (we didn’t fall for it) and then shouted at for trying to buy water as apparently the we didn’t have time – the bus needed to leave right now! We ignored them and got our water anyway, got on the bus and sat there for another 5-10 minutes before the bus left.

Glad to be on the bus at last we set off for Danang where we would change to hoi an – hopefully that really would be simple.

Deb & Ang

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