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Published: June 11th 2009
Hue
We left Hanoi in the early evening on the Harry Potter-ish named ‘Pumpkin Express’ sleeper train south to Hue. (The state train company runs the locomotive and most of the carriages, a few private companies hitch on their own carriages which they market to foreigners). I've thrown in a couple of photos of what the dining car was supposed to look like, and what it did in reality). Ed had a burger for dinner that he had picked up at the station before we left, and a can of Tiger beer and 5 oreos for Katherine. The Oreo’s were courtesy of Mark and Mary from Tiperrary, Ireland, a lovely couple who were sharing our cabin on the train.
After the intensity of Hanoi, we had a very gentle introduction to the city - we were staying at a hotel slightly out of town which had arranged a pick up for us. Hue is the capital of the Nguyen emperors and is the traditional arts and heritage heart of the nation. The main feature is the Citadel, the former site of the Imperial Palace, which is a huge compound of Pagodas and walls, itself set within 2 other citadels, nestled
in a bend in the perfume river which runs through the city.The citadel city was built in 1687 and was bombed heavily during the war* so little remains, but there are areas of refurbishment and with a bit of imagination you can appreciate the magnificent structure it once was.
*
By this we mean what we call the Vietnam War, which the Vietnamese refer to as the 'American War'. Many Vietnamese are fiercely proud of their country, and consider themselves to have fought a war for 1000 years against the Chinese, 30 years against the French, and 10 years against the Americans, in order to preserve it. Being the historic seat of power of many of Vietnam's previous emperors (the Vietnamese state obviously didn't exist at the time), a major tourist attraction are the collection of Royal Tombs in the countryside surrounding the city. Some- presumably built by emperors who had fallen on hard times- are 'merely' a sucession of huge pagodas all aligned in a geometic fashion according to feng shui principles- while others - presumably built by more flush emperors are situated on acres of land with rivers and lakes and what seemed like dozens of
different worship areas.
In contrast, the tomb of Minh Mang, who ruled from 1820-1840, has majestic lakes, huge pagodas and in the centre of it all is a huge mound (now covered with forrest) surrounded by a 4 metre high wall a kilometre in circumference which is permanently sealed to the public, in the middle of which buried underground lies the emperor apparently accompanied by a huge haul of treasure. All the 100 servants who built the tomb and knew the location of the remains underground were put to death after they finished their task, and apparently to this day, there the loot remains. (Personally I think the Communist party will have swiped the lot as soon as they were able to!)
One evening, we went for a stroll into the city at dusk and decided to try eating with the locals for a bit of authentic fare (we also were considering the cheap prices). When we say restaurant, we mean a particular collection of little low plastic stools and tables served by a kitchen normally on a road opposite. We sat down at one table and for about 15 minutes tried to get a waitresses attention and
Payment in kind
A lady in a shop didn't have anough small change to pay me 20 dong she owed me, so through in a couple of bits of chewing gum to make it eveneventually managed to secure a few bottles of beer. (the beer is not served chilled- the bottles come as they are, and are served with an icebucket each oerson gets a mug filled with ice to drink from.). 45 mins later we had been unable to get anyone attention to order some food and were getting a little desperate. We then succeeded in getting one girls attention, and (lacking menus in English) managed by way of internaiotnal sign language and by pointing at other tables, to try and tell her we wanted a selection of various foods to try. Amazingly enough this worked, and soon enough we were dining like kings for about 4 USD.
Danang
I’m having a bit of difficulty recalling why we went to Danang- wait a minute, I remember: its because our guide book said its an absolutely beautiful train ride there, and there isn’t a train down to Hoi An, our intended destination further south. We arrived in the town about lunchtime. After checking in at our hotel (see the photo of the health club!), lunch was the first order of the day. We spent an hour walking around in the scorching sun
trying to find a nice café listed in our guide book. It wasn’t there. We walked around some more and sat down in another cafe, which was open air and a bit like sitting down in a jungle. A waiter gave us some green tea and gave us to understand that he would send someone to take our order who spoke English.
15 minutes later we had seen no further actvivity and we eventually left - lunch that day was pineapple from the fruit vendor lady who we have come to communicate with often and perfectly! Durring the course of the day we got prices from a few travel agents for a bus to Hoi An the next day. Later, we went back to the hotel and sought refuge, completely lacking any motivation to venture onto the streets. Around 6pm we decided to book a bus trip to Hoi An and Ed set off back to one of the travel agents to book the tickets. He arrived but it was shut. We showered and found a taxi to take us to the restaurant we had picked in the book. When we got there, it had shut down. Hastily, we
Tomb of Minh Mang
Behind the locked gates is where the former king's actual tomb is buried picked another. When we got to the address where it should have been, it wasn’t there. Flabberghasted., we picked yet another restaurant. Unbelievably, when we got to this third venue, it too had moved/ was not there. Thanks, Lonely Planet.
With our taxi fare escalating, we gave up and went to a Chinese restaurant we had seen earlier. We sat down next to a Chinese family of 5 who were noisily tucking into a meal of rice and fried birds heads. A while later we managed to order. Half an hour later the waitress told Kat that one her vegetable dishes was not available. She picked another one. Half an hour later our food arrived minus the meat dish Ed had ordered, but with both Kat’s original and replacement dish. We ate what we could and after a very uncomfortable communication trying to avoid paying for the second vegetable dish (which caused an argument between the waitress and the manager, who I think thought we didn’t want to pay because we didn’t like it!) managed to take some veg home with us in a doggie bag. On the plus side the food was very good!
Ed was in
little apprentice
We're not sure what he was training to be - but his job was to ring a gong every hour a sulk, muttering things about ‘needing protein’ and went to bed having only eaten some morning glory (friend spinach/ broccoli) and a chocolate cornetto. The next morning Ed got up at 7 am to make the 30 min round trip trek back to the travel agent to secure the bus tickets. On the way back he walked into the most western looking café he could found an tried to order a coffee to take away. He returned later with two bus tickets, a little plastic bag of coffee, a little plastic bag of sweet milk. We then had probably the worst breakfast we had all trip /. What did we expect for a 14USD price? Well a lot more than this. There was a selection of old veg, noodles, and bananas. Fried eggs were available. A microwaved instant coffee was an extra 1 dollar.
We then got a taxi back to the travel agent where the bus was leaving from (the 4th visit now for Ed in under 24 hrs). The bus trip advertised a brief stop at the Marble Mountains, apparently a beautiful hillside outside from Danang, where over the years various carvings in one of 4 different
Thich Quang Duc's car
This monk drove this car to the centre of Hue to burn himself in protest against Ngo Diem's reign which oppressed religious freedom types of marble (representing the 4 elements- earth, wind, fire and water) had been made. The bus stopped in a car park surrounded by a horde of shops selling every conceivable marble object known to man (and a few that were not!). The entrance to the caves was shut all day as it was a Sunday. Katherine and I sat on a kirb in the carpark sipping a diet coke and trying to ignore the frenzied cries of the shopkeepers entreating us to look at their goods, and wondered whether our luck would pick up when we got to Hoi An.
Hoi An
The bus dropped us off outside the local branch office of the travel agent running the bus we had taken. We found a gathering of motorcycle drivers offering to drive us to our hotel. Using the map in our guide book, the address of the travel agent as stated on its business card, and considering the assurances of the motorbike drivers that our hotel was a ‘very long way’, Ed determined that it was a fair distance away and we agreed on $2 each with two drivers to take us there. The bikes were loaded
Tu Duc's concubines
These were put in place for each of the emperor's concubines who bore him a son for people to worship with our luggage and uu, the drivers drove us around in a big circle for about 5 minutes then dropped us off at hotel, literally about 150 meters away from where we started. Well, bad karma to them! We had to laugh.
The original town of Hoi An itself is a complete joy. It’s a group of ancient and narrow French style cobbled streets, which retain all their orginal features from the French period of occupation. Trappings of its western past (like an original Shell petrol street sign) blend seamlessly with Vietnamese/ Chinese influences (the trees are adorned with red coloured lanterns which at night make the streets look really magical and ancient. The most wonderful surprise of this place was that the food was AMAZING. Every meal we had we loved, which was a nice change from many of our meals in the north. We discovered the noodle dish 'cau lao' only made in Hoi An from water from a special well. 'White roses' which are liitle rice steamed dumplings with chicken and veggies served with amazing sauce. Hoi An was able to blend the old and the new very well. While the aesthetic beauty of the town
was very traditional and well preserved, there were western comforts to be found everywhere without taking away from the charm of the city.
We took a cooking class one day with another couple that Ed picked up outside a bar one night :-) Matt and Primi, also from London and they were very cool and we ended up running into them further along in our trip as well. We started our class at 11am and cooked some of our staple dishes and they were still amazing even when we cooked them. We also managed to polish off a bottle wine during the course of the class which made riding our bikes to the beach later a bit of task!
Hoi An has a million tailor shops everywhere. They were quite alluring as I could get a silk dress made for $20USD, but then I got thinking what am I going to do with a silk dress for the next 2 months, it'll prob get ruined, so I bought some amazing chopsticks instead!
We took a day trip to My Son, the site of the ancient kingdom of Champa and a Unesco World Heritage site. My son was
the most important intellectual and religious centre and burial place for Cham monarchs from the 4th-13th century. We took an early morning bus there with a group of other westerners and began our tour in the cooking heat. The ruins are divided into groups: A, B, C etc. Some of the ruins have been reasonably well preserved, but due to age and predominately bombings during WWII they are mostly piles of bricks. Group A, as seen in the photos, has been the most preserved and continues to get refurbishment work to try to closer restore it to what it once was.
We would reccomend anyone to go to Hoi An. We spent hours biking around the cobbled streets, exploring different shops, restaurants, and bars. Basically we recharged and got ready for our next adventure to Nha Trang,
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