Advertisement
Published: October 15th 2008
Edit Blog Post
My trip to Hue would provide me with my first experience of the overnight sleeping bus I would be taking all the way down to Saigon. This is probably the best way (for people on a budget) to travel down the country, not only is it the cheapest but they also pick you up from your hotel and usual drop you at one of their hotels which in my small experience are pretty cheap and cheerful. I had pretty high expectations as the sleeping train I took to Sapa was both comfortable and roomy... unfortunately this was not the case with the bus. As I choose one of the last remaining seats and sat down in the overlapping beds that resembled a fallen line of domino's I realised that this was not going to be a good night. The overlapping meant that my legs were under someone elses head, and my head over someone elses legs etc. I was not horizontal. Not only that, my legs were too long for the bed so I had to bend my knees into all sorts of positions throughout the night. I ended up with my legs hanging in the walkway. Luckily my slim physique
came in handy as the beds were thin themselves... there were a couple of 'big boned' people, and they did not look comfortable. Could this get any worse I hear you say... well, yes it could. The bus driver thought it appropriate to play very bad Vietnamese music till about three in the morning... enough said! I finally arrived in the Royal City of Hue and went straight into the hotel where we were dropped off and got a room with an Australian guy I met on the bus... helping out with the budget. This day was quite chilled out... we walked around the place a got a feel for the city and we just so happened to stumble upon a couple of tennis courts to my delight. We were told to come back at 3pm, and of course I did... we ended up playing with this club for a few dollars and playing a doubles game with some locals. This was cool but it was more of a relaxed game so I challenged one of the guys to a singles match to really get a practice and workout... and what a workout it was. It was extremely humid that
day and that highlighted my lack in fitness... while I was playing well in the beginning my form literally sweated out of me into salty pools on the floor. I was making him run just as much as I was, but obviously being used to this climate he didn't seem to even sweat a bead. I earnt his respect though and had some good match practice, and another thing which was super cool was that even though I was in a country poorer than my own, they still had better courts of a higher quality and not only that, but I had a ball boy... yes a little Vietnamese boy was throwing me tennis balls when I nodded my head like I was playing on Centre Court in Wimbledon. Later on we rented a couple of bicycles and rode round the city and the citadel looking for a particular place to eat recommended by a book. Getting lost was half the fun but we eventually to this very posh restaurant in a quiet part of the citadel. I was a set 7 course meal which would end up costing us 200,000d each, quite a lot considering we ate a nice
big bowl of noodle soup for lunch for 20,000d. It was pretty spectacular though... the first course was just plain old spring rolls, but the presentation was not. It came out in the form of a swan, the body was a pineapple on its side, the leaves provided the tail while the middle was hollowed out and filled with a candle. The head was carved out of a carrot which was also the vegetable used to give the bird wings... the spring rolls were then stuck in the top via cocktail sticks. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera for such an occasion. The other courses were on par with the taste but not the presentation so I won't go into detail... but it was a great dining experience nonetheless.
That day we also booked a couple of tours for the next to days. The first of which was the city tour of all the temples, tombs and pagodas. This was to be a busy day. It probably wasn't the ideal way to see all of these great sights as we were all on a big full tour bus which kind of took away the quiet atmosphere needed for a
peaceful experience. I felt like a Japanese tourist who depart their bus and quickly take a hundred snaps in a few minute before re-boarding in pursuit of their next destination. I could easily make my peace by mentally blocking out all the other people in my vicinity but I couldn't block them out physically... They were messing up my shots. I overcame this problem by being the first on scene or the last to leave, providing me with none of the loitering co-tourists in my picture frame. At the beginning of the day I felt that the pace was a little rushed, obviously we had a lot to do that day and couldn't stroll at a leisurely pace but near the end of the day I was tired, hot and really didn't want to see another temple... at this time I thought back to the beginning of the day and my feelings then... I had changed my mind, the pace was good! It was a good full day of sight seeing that had left me drained, but with a quick shower later I was ready to hit the town. I probably had a little too much fun and drinks that
night as the next day I was supposed to be up at 6am for the DMZ tour. Although it makes me feel better when more people are in the same state as me, and as well as my roommate there were five Irish girls on our tour that we met the night before... we would all feel as crap as each other.
The DMZ tour was not all it was cracked up to be... once again we were all on a tour bus like a can of sardines being transported from location to location which in this case were far apart from each other meaning that most of the day we resided on the bus. Not really what I had in mind. During my 12 hour day I saw to things that really interested me, firstly it was the War Museum (the real name I can't remember) which housed old USA helicopters, planes and tanks as well as other items such as clothes, guns, bomb shells and other such equipment. There were also many photos accompanied by some short paragraphs here and there. My second point of interest was the tunnels made and used during the Vietnam/American was. We
walked though the tunnels and saw the tiny rooms used for families, bomb bunkers, birth rooms and more. This was very interesting but also hard to imagine these people living their lives down here. Some of the tunnels exited onto a picturesque beach... contrasting the peacefulness of this scenery to the disruption and disorder that must have been all those years ago. Our whole group followed a guide in and out of the tunnels... However most people agreed that it would have been more exciting to venture off by yourself with a torch for a longer more enjoyable time. Also on this tour (again very randomly) was the two I met on the way back from Halong Bay... its very nice to be able to bump into people again but the way in which this country has been set up as a tourist destination its inevitable that you will eventually meet people again and again and again in some cases (although this is not so much for bigger cities like Saigon and Hanoi). But soon enough we were all back on the bus and heading home and tomorrow I would once again be departing and heading down to the town
of Hoi An.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.14s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0926s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
daisy
non-member comment
missin u!!!!
hey sam missin u soooooo much, i wish i was ther it looks sooooo cool. want u bac here bc olies gettin soooo annoyin but dats old news, lol, miss u Daisyxxx