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The bus journey to Hue was blissfully easy, it was only three hours, and so, was a great improvement on the usual 8-12. Our initial impressions of Hue were not as we had expected them to be - we had imagined a quiet town, similar to Hoi An, but were greeted with a busy city, almost resembling Saigon. Once the bus had dropped us off, we got our very first cycle taxi (this consists of a single seat mounted on the front of a push bike, and is painfully slow, but wonderfully cheap!) to our hotel.
Having arrived in the early evening, we went straight out for a meal, but found the city to be plunged into darkness, as there had been a power cut. Therefore we enjoyed our first meal by candlelight and then made our way back to the hotel.
We made a reasonably early start the following day and decided to take a walk to the forbidden purple city, which came highly recommended from the Lonely Planet books. It took us about half an hour to walk there, which was something of a struggle in the blistering heat. After reaching the city, we walked around the walls
(we couldn't seem to find a way in) which was very enjoyable, as there were narrow pathways hugging the huge stone walls, making for a suprisingly peaceful walk. We then decided it was too hot to stay out, and so caught a motorbike back to the air conditioned sanctuary of our room.
That evening, whilst on the internet in our hotels reception, we met a very friendly Australian woman, who we got chatting to, and later found out she had been to Brighton on several occasions! She recommended a nice place to eat, that had power, and we soon set off for our evening meal. The restaurant was extremely basic, but served up cracking food. Whilst here we were approached by the owner who offered us a motorbike tour of Hue and the surrounding area. We had only allowed for two nights in Hue, and were leaving the next day on an overnight bus to Hanoi at 5pm so the itinerary he came up with was perfect for us, as it left early in the morning, and got us back into the city about 1pm. Not only this, but the price was great, and it seemed a slightly more
unique way of seeing Hue, rather than taking one of the popular boat trips.
The next morning we were up 7.30am and back at the restaurant for 8am, ready to embark on our trip. One other person had booked in for the trip, an English guy called Ben, and it was great being in a small group, rather than a veritable army of tourists. The motorbike drivers arrived, who were all friendly, and we jumped on the back, and began weaving our way through the morning rush hour. It took us about 20 minutes to get out of the main city and the journey towards our first stop was an extremely scenic one. After leaving the main roads, we were just driving along thin, dirt roads, with rice paddies stretching out as far as the eye could see on either side of us.
We first visited a covered bridge - an archaic wooden structure, utilised by the Vietnamese, many years ago, as a stop off point on long journeys, where anyone could sleep. Next to the bridge was a village market, which was perhaps slightly more interesting than the bridge itself, as it gave an insight into true Vietnamese
culture, without any of the trappings of tourism.
Our second stop was at the top of a hill, on the banks of the Mekong river, and was purely for the views, which were spectacular.
The next stop off, was to a few huts on the side of a road, where they made incense in the traditional style, it was interesting to watch them making it, and the displays of all the coloured sticks was really impressive, but unfortunately a coachload of German tourists turned up halfway through our visit, and as usual, rather spoiled it.
After a brief drive further into the countryside, we turned off into the forest and arrived outside a Buddhist monastery. The restaurant owner/chief bike driver, was an excellent guide, and took us around the monastery explaining the day to day rituals of the resident monks. We were then allowed to sit down and watch the afternoon prayer which involved much chanting and banging of gongs. The monastery was in a really peaceful setting, and at the entrance was small pond filled with massive fish.
We jumped back on our motorbikes and visited the tomb of Tu Doc, a Vietnamese emperor. This comprised of a much
Covered bridge
First stop on our motorbike tour larger area than the name suggests, and was filled with peaceful glades, and a lake. The tombs of Tu Doc and his many wives themselves were not that impressive, however their surroundings more than made up for it, see pictures.
Our last stop of the day was to Thien Mu Pagoda, one of the oldest building in Hue, dating back to 1601. Again the setting was great, and views to the perfume river were marvellous. The pagoda itself could not be entered but we spent a while admiring it from the shady courtyard.
We returned to Hue at around 1pm and had lunch at the restaurant where we had booked the trip, before returning to our hotel and passing a few boring hours on the internet waiting for our bus which was due to leave for Hanoi at 5pm.
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