Blogs from Thua Thien - Huế, North Central Coast, Vietnam, Asia - page 8

Left Hanoi, which we had enjoyed so much and took the hotel taxi to the airport. Flight book-in with Vietnam Airlines was a vast improvement on our previous one and we were checked in, baggage dropped within 15 minutes. Had not been quite careful enough with my packing and my nail scissors, as they often do, had found their way from my suitcase sponge bag back into my handbag. Confiscated. Oddly, they failed to find the liquid ice-packs which Bob had accidentally left in his carry on bag and I’m sure they were far more of a potential security risk than our bottle of water which we also had to leave behind ! Flight to Hue was only an hour and it took off exactly on time. At Hue it was strange not to have to ... read more

Hue - the Old Capital City of Vietnam. A little bit of a disappointment after Hoi An but we only decided to stay two nights before our last two destinations in Vietnam. Our journey to Hue was an eventful one! When I bought the bus tickets to get there, I was so proud of myself that I got them at such a cheap price, 80,000 Dong(£2.75). I chatted to the man in the shop for a while and I thought he was giving me a bit of a discount! Little did I know this was going to be the smelliest, most unreliable bus we have got so far! Surprisingly, we were picked up on time but then brought to a shop to wait for ten minutes that turned into more like an hour. When we finally ... read more

Huế city is my most visited destination in Vietnam. In December 1997, I went there for the first time as a tourist. Some years later, I was assigned by my Japanese construction company to promote "the Project for Improvement of Facilities for the Huế Central Hospital". Thanks to that assignment, I had the chance to fly there many times on the business trips. Up to early January 2020, I have been to Huế city 25 times and always feel that I have a great connection with this fascinating place. As we all know, the Imperial Citadel, along with the splendid tombs of the Nguyễn emperors and notable pagodas in Huế city, was recognized as a UNESCO world heritage site in December 1993. Huế city was the capital of Vietnam from 1802 to 1945 under the Nguyễn ... read more

Well as you can imagine the last 24 hours have been all about typhoon Haiyan, aka the super typhoon! Our plan had been to try and travel to Hoi An this morning, and stay there for the next two days, however, with the storm due to hit Hoi An and then head north, we either had to travel through the storm, or stay in Hue and ride it out. In the end, the decision was made for us, we woke up this morning and the buses, flights and trains were all cancelled because it was too dangerous to travel, so we have booked another night at our hotel in Hue, and have settled in for the storm. The hotel moved it's guests out of the rooms on the top floor last night. We are on the ... read more

I am not a sociologist or an anthropologist, so I hesitate to posit theories concerning the deep-rooted psychological causes of cultural behavior shared by the individuals that make up that culture. Even if they may seem evident to me, I’ll leave any intellectual asseverations to the experts because mine will surely be missing facets I could not even conceive. However, I am more than happy with being an observer, reporting on what Klaudia and I have seen, and on what we’ve experienced along the way. And, in all honestly, knowing that subjectivity is part of the fun in writing about our experiences, I do try to keep any dramatization or exaggeration to a minimum. Thus, it is not a question of having misinterpreted perceptions on people’s attitudes towards us, or in misrepresenting them – we experienced ... read more