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Published: September 10th 2006
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Hello ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and welcome to Hue… Hue is about half way up, (or down), Vietnam and is the proud owner of the Regal Royal Tombs, (where some royal dead peeps are buried), the ancient Citadel, (the old emperors pad), and some mighty fine countryside not to mention some crazy cool special people. We arrived in Hue quite late in the evening and night fall was upon us. We therefore headed straight to an Indian restaurant for a change of the usual cuisine. Great samosas.. pretty good curry. Then we had alcohol, then bed. Goodnight sweetheart. Goodnight. Sleep tight.
The highlight of the next day was a motorbike tour around Hue and the surrounding countryside. I wasn’t driving mind you…
May I please take this opportunity to introduce you to Mr Tam. He can only be described as “a mentalist” or just “a mental” if you prefer. Mr Tam is our local guide and also an ex-“commando”, a journalist, a photographer and a comedian with bad jokes. Mr Tam led the motorbike tour along with a load of his ex-military, motorbike driver buddies in lovely green military uniforms. Mine was called “Dan”. It sounded like
that anyway! He didn’t speak much English but pointed out the odd thing to me… “Buffalo”…. “Tree”. And so… we road off into the countryside in the boiling heat, driving through villages, past rivers, through fields and hills, and through little markets coming very close to running over the locals feet. At one stage I’m sure we even rode through someone’s house on the bikes, entering through the front and exiting through the back door. We had many stops on the way visiting The Emperors Tomb, the Thien Nu Pagoda, various temples and many other places of interest which I will reveal to you shortly like a magician drawing a rabbit from a hat.
Instead of telling as about the history of places that we visited and giving us information about them, Mr. Tam instead decided to give us a number of demonstrations of his martial arts skills, some comedy performances, and also made us following him around as he wandered around like he was James Bond or some sort of special agent, (Hiding behind walls, diving and rolling on the floor, and acting like he was on some sort of stealth mission to taking down the Korean tourists).
His martial arts were actually pretty impressive as he could make those noises you hear in Martial arts films just by moving his arms and legs around. Not the ones people make with there mouths but the ones that sound like something is moving well quick through the air. You get me?? His jokes were possibly the worst I’ve ever heard but they were so bad they were amazingly funny especially with his ridiculously stupid voice. His impression of a Scottish Pakistani was pretty good also. Actually it was amazing. He proceeded to tell jokes, perform martial arts and say crazy things throughout the day and had more energy than a person with lots of energy who’s had a bucket of red bull and 11 pints of energy drink. I liked him a lot. An entertaining character! A mentalist.. One of my favorite Vietnamese people so far.
For lunch we headed to this remote monastery in the countryside where the monks put on an amazing spread of food for us. Nothing like the monastery food at Po Lin in Hong Kong! This was good scran. After this feast we had the pleasure of being invited to meet the head
Monk in his pagoda…. So we did. He was a cool Monk. Mr Tam translated what he said. He gave us some words of wisdom and then taught us some meditation techniques. We then meditated for 5 minutes. I was unable to sit in the lotus position. He seemed to especially like this welsh guy who was with us as him and the head monk had the same haircut, (skin head). He called him the “Monk from Cardiff”. After some photo’s with the Monk and some shaking of the hands, (apparently the monks don’t usually touch people… he must have liked us), we adjourned. Other highlights of the trip included a boat trip down the perfume river, (it wasn’t really a river of perfume but would have been good if was), and the Thanh Toan bridge with fortune teller lady and smiling kids. Another cool place we stopped at was at this disabled ladies house. She only had one arm but was an amazing conical hat maker. I’m not sure if they are called conical hats but that’s what I call them… The ones all the Vietnamese peeps are wearing. If you wanna be down the Vietnamese crew you gotta
Monk
Nice guy be wearing one of these! I bought one for about 20,000 Ding Dong. It sounds a lot but its not. I’m not sure how I’m going to carry it around for 5 months but I will worry about that later. Perhaps I could just wear it everywhere. Anyway, it was altogether a top day which was finished off with some great French/Vietnamese cuisine at a local fusion restaurant. (Lots of French influence in Asia so far!) I like motorbikes. Maybe I will hire one and drive it around myself. Or perhaps not.
The following day it was Mr Tam time again. We headed to the Citadel and Purple City on Cyclo’s leaving in the early morning. My Cyclo driver was about 9 years old. Strong legs for a little-en. In the intervals between acts we were able to squeeze the odd bit of information from Mr Tam, so we did manage to find out some stuff about the place. Quite interesting but it was so hot and humid! I found it really hard to walk around in the extreme heat and was glad to get back for another shower. After more food and a walk around the town it
Hat Maker
So thats how you make em was time to leave Hue for Hanoi and Halong Bay. Let’s hope my prayers will be answered! And so.. until the next time… its goodbye from me.. PPTD. Laterz… Bravo Two Zero. Over and Out.
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Celina
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Around Asia
I envy you on your good collection of photograps,I wish I done that When I was touring in asia. Some of your picture remind me during my holiday there in 1998.