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Published: August 2nd 2012
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Khai Dinh tomb
These eleborate tombs were made by emperors who didn't have much else to do but wanted to make sure legacy lived on From Hanoi, I began my adventure south, first stopping in Hue. And what an adventure it was! First was the rain. I decided to walk from my hostel in Hanoi to the train station because I was not happy that a taxi charged a extra dollar each for the dark (I was taking the night train that left at 11) and for the rain so that my taxi ride would have cost 4 dollars. This is outrageous considering the most you ever pay otherwise for a taxi is a dollar. So, I got on my high horse and decided to huff it the 3 kilometers. When I started it was just sprinkling so no problem. Then the rain increased until it was actually hurting it was falling so hard and fast and I had to take shelter to wait it out. It poured like I have never seen for a solid 30 minutes with thunder and lighting and the street I was on started to flood pretty quick so I was a little worried I might get trapped. The rain finally let up and I made it to the station still with plenty of time but pretty well soaked.
Then I had to deal with the hassle awaiting for me on board. A French family was trying to ask people to move sleeper compartments so their family could be together. Simple enough, yet for some reason this was causing an uproar and there was a ton of loud voices, pointing and general confusion that I walked into that it was a little unsettling at first. Part of the problem may have been that I was the only other person besides the french that spoke any decent English so I think messages kept getting misunderstood. Anyways, after 15 minutes of shuffling and waiting while it all got sorted out, I finally got a bed in a cabin with a Japanese lady, a Vietnamese guy, and a French guy. None of us were supposed to be in the cabin originally... Once on the train, I feel asleep pretty quickly but woke up freezing and realized the AC was pointing right at me. And there was no turning it off because then we would roast and I couldn't redirect it either. I blame that freezing recirculated air for the cold I have now.
11 hours later I hoped
off the train in Hue, the old imperial capital of Vietnam. I immediately welcomed the less crowded and less hectic city and found its setting quite stunning with the Perfume river running through the heart of the town and several mountains ad hills surrounding it. Most people come here for the culture and history so I thought I would engage in a little myself. There are the old emperors tombs in the hills, pagodadas, and the main attraction, the citadel where the emperors used to live and rule from. None of the places are very old, nothing it much older than 200 years, but it is still quite impressive considering it so recently served as these important places that are now mostly in ruins. Part of the reasons for the ruins of course is the destruction from the Vietnam war which hurt Hue really badly. Now the place is a Unesco site.
I really only had one full day in the city and quickly saw I would have difficulty seeing everything I wanted because it was all pretty well spaced out. So to help me get around, I rented a small automatic motorbike for 7 dollars for
Khai Dinh tomb
In the middle of the forest outside of Hue the day. 2 dollars to fill me up with a half tank of gas and I was out fighting for myself in the Vietnamese traffic. Thankfully Hue is nothing like Hanoi when it comes to traffic but I still had to get used to some rather crazy road rules. The difficulty with driving is it is kind of hard to navigate too since you have to concentrate so hard on the traffic. Thus I got really good at u turns and also realized the map the hotel gave me was way out of proportion. What looked like large roads were actually small dirt paths and that large river I was always trying to find was actually a dried up creek. Nevertheless, I was able to get around, see what I wanted to see, and had a blast driving out in the rice fields, through the beautiful hills and battling the city traffic. I also find driving these motorbikes to be extremely practical. Driving around all day and only used a quarter tank.
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