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Published: July 13th 2006
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After a horribly hot bus ride from Hoi An, we arrive in Hue and are dropped off in the middle of I don't know where. All I know is I'm really frigin' hot and I am now carrying three bags, the newest being my $2 nike duffel bag with all my new clothes, and I want a hotel room with A/C ASAP! I have been living happily without A/C up until now. It is so bloody hot here I can't take it. After the binging in Nha Trang this is really the perfect detox. You just sweat and sweat and out come all the toxins. Pretty gross really.
Anyways, we dump our stuff onto the ground at some random corner in Hue and try and figure out a plan of action. It's the last weekend of a festival in Hue so it's very busy and we're worried we won't get a bus ticket to Hanoi the next day. So we need a travel agency before anything else. We are in the middle of figuring out where we are when I step into a hole the size of my foot in the sidewalk. Yes, you might think that's funny, but wow,
it was so far from funny at the time. I am extremely lucky I didn't break my leg because my leg slid in up to my thigh. I twisted my knee on the way in and thoroughly scraped my leg up both going in and pulling out of it. Just fantastic really! Now I'm sweaty, exhausted, tired and bleeding profusely. We find our travel agency only to find out the buses are full. This sucks because we basically all paid for each of our bus tickets in Saigon as an "open bus ticket" thing to get all the way up to Hanoi. Now we have to buy another ticket, if we can find it. At this very moment I was feeling a little on the low side and was feeling like I was slipping into the Hurd grumpy zone. Although no sooner was I thinking that than we stumbled into an agency who found a company to take us... I guess the gods felt sorry for throwing me into a random hole in the sidewalk and decided to cut us a break.
For the next couple of hours we took full advantage of the cool air and massive hotel room.
I have to say I love Vietnam for the value of accomodation. It's really impressive. Usually $5 will get you a really nice room with tv, hot water and fan and for an extra $3 you can have A/C. So between 2 people it is really cheap. It's funny though, we wouldn't dish out that extra $1.50 for A/C for SO long. You become such cheap asses travelling, it's hilarious. But really it will be hard to leave this relative luxury. The beautifully decorated rooms- colonial style, the BATHTUBS(that's right!), the clean toilets, STARmovies channel... all these luxuries will be gone when I'm back to the basic fan and shared bathroom rooms in Thailand. 😞 For the same damn price!
Anyways, back to Hue...
The following day we hired a cyclo each to drive us around the citadel ( a UNESCO world heritage site). The forbidden City at the centre is very ruined, almost too ruined. I would have loved to have seen it back in the day, it must have been stunning. The tour around was pretty fun, mostly because of our hilarious cyclo drivers. We were going to just walk around but of course when you're walking anywhere
Sophie on the cyclo
Her driver was the mac-daddy with all the wives in Hue you are stalked by cyclo drivers wanting to give you a ride. So I am glad we did get a ride, A) to stop the harrasment and B) it was very fun. One of the men was 65 and he had several wives. The other guys basically thought he was 'the man'! It is pretty crazy to think that they all experienced that horrible war, and here they are smiling and happy and just living life. It's the same with Cambodia, they are such incredibly strong people. I suppose you have no choice but to keep on going. I wonder how north americans would cope? Anyways, although I can't say overall I found Hue that amazing, the citadel was worth checking out. Again, I wish I could have seen it before it was bombed to hell by the US airforce.
That evening we found another Omar's where we had delicious curries! I do feel a little guilty though. Apparently Hue is renown for its food. oops. I guess I will have to come back again sometime! Or just eat more in Hanoi to make up for it! That's the attitude right?
So with extremely full bellies we
The Forbidden City
Or rather what's left of it... headed back to the hotel to be picked up for our much anticipated night bus ride! yay! Next stop... Hanoi.
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Sue/Mum
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Great pics. You're looking very tanned. Probably sweaty too but we can't tell from the photos! The last blog came from Hanoi where you were shoppping. Did they get mixed up or am I just confused? Love, MUM