Blogs from Thua Thien - Huế, North Central Coast, Vietnam, Asia - page 76

We were looking forward to Hue but in the end we were a bit disappointed. The town was OK, some great resturants and drinking holes, but in terms of stuff to see it was a let down. The citadel was not bad but we had been told inside wasn't worth it so gave that a miss. The area around the citadel was good for a cycle round though just to soak up the atmosphere. The main thing we wanted to see was the tombs of the old emperors. Maybe we didn't read up on it enough but we found them quite dull and not really that interesting. The most fun part of the day was the motorbike ride between stops which included having to ride the bike over a very unstable bamboo bridge about 1m wide, ... read more

I flew from Hanoi to Hue to cut out a 15 hour bus journey through what is not the most exciting area of Vietnam. The main reason I visited Hue was to see the imperial citadel. Most of the citadel was destroyed during the 1968 Tet offensive, when the Viet Cong flag flew over the citadel for weeks. Though it has been heavily renovated, you can still see bullet holes in a few places. The citadel was quite interesting and the government is carrying out extensive renovations. It looked like a smaller version of the Forbidden City in Beijing. The constant harassment of the moto and cyclo drivers is annoying, but you just have to be firm and ignore them when they follow you. On the second day, I took a boat trip to the imperial ... read more

Well, I followed up the sandwich with an all you can eat pizza place for dinner and a big ice cream sunday the next day. I also decided to book a flight out of Ho Chi Minh City for the 17th going back directly to Bangkok. This means I won't get to see Cambodia except for Angkor Wat but I think I didn't really have enough time to see as much as I would have liked anyway so I'll leave it for next time. I am currently in Hue which is much quieter and much hotter than Hanoi. I am still being hounded by people wanting to give me a ride on their motorbike for an insane fee but it's not as bad. I've had a few conversations with people about their impressions of Vietnam and ... read more

Hue is an interesting city, with the Perfume River neatly disecting the city and as the former capitol of the counrty, the heart of the city surrounded by a defensive fortifation consisting of an enormous brick wall that runs a total of 6 miles around. On top of all this, is a fortified citadel is a walled off area within the walled of area that encloses several acres. All in all, the city provides ample fair for just nosing about. On my first day spent my time wandering the streets and poking around some fairly interesting museums. The following day, on the recommendation of some friends, I bought a ticket to the citadel. The city of Hue was fiercly contested in the Vietnam War, and as a result of the heavy bombing a large part of ... read more

Breakfast at Son Xanh Blue River Restaurant. There were two guys there who were already drinking beer at 7AM! Then we got a bus to Hue, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage site. Stopped at Marble Mountain along the way. There is a cave there, but we didn’t feel like paying the admission fee and racing up to the cave and back to the bus in 15 minutes. The bus stopped right in front of Phu An Hotel and there were touts that got on the bus to drum up business. The place was nice, so we stayed. We had lunch at Omar Khayyam’s Indian Restaurant. Then we walked to The Citadel and toured the Forbidden Purple City, which follows the same layout as the Forbidden City in Beijing. Much of the Purple City was ... read more