Hue'

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Yesterday I arrived in Hue', right in the middle of Viet Nam, and the old capital until the French colonialists made Sai Gon their Indochine capital. It was a short three hour bus ride from Hoi An made longer with two unncessary, although pleasant, stops.

Left my Hotel in Hoi An and went down the road to the travel agent where I bought my ticket. They explained the actual bus was waiting ahead straight, then right about 100-150 meters. I set off, repeating the instructions back, and saying thank you. After marching twenty feet down the road, a motorcycle stopped and looking up I realized it was the girl from a shop I bought some shirts from and her husband. "Hey! We take you to bus! Jump on". My backpack probably weighed around 20Kg but at least both my hands were free. "Ok, lets go". "No worry, I'm a very good driver". No doubt she was.

After driving a few minutes we turned onto the street we guessed the bus was on, and - uh, oh - is that my bus LEAVING!? "No problem, we follow" she said as we performed a perfect 180 through the crazy traffic to symphony of blaring horns. We caught up to the driver who pulled over, and we discovered it was the wrong bus. I pulled out my ticket and the girl instantly recognized it, "very close...we take you".

In Viet Nam, "very close" can mean anything between a minute to an hour trip. In this case, the place was just a block away but I was concerned there was no bus. "Hue'?" I asked while gesturing my ticket forward. "Yes, correct!" an older man replied. I smiled and waved back to my friends on the motorbike and said thank you and goodbye (in Vietnamese).

"We go Hue' soon. No worry". I slung my backpack off and took a seat. "We take boat you know" the man said. It was only 8:30am and was quite surprised by this; surely the only way is by bus. "Yes, we take boat then helicopter" the man said. Even more confusing, but I noticed the other worker betrayed his superior with a smile.

Two Australian girls joined in. "Yes, you didn't know? We're actually parachuting into My Son" they said with a smile". Finally I caught on to their game. "Oh, no jetpack this year?" I inquired to which the others approvingly smiled. And so it went until the Aussie girls went off to their "plane" and my "boat" was waiting for me down the road.

The older gentleman accompanied me to the "boat" and we, um, boarded. It was nearly full and sat near the back, next to a dozing Scotsman in his early 20s. I got out my book, "The Da Vinci Code" and was about to continue reading when I heard, "So where are you from". My answer of "America" seemed to surprise him and the conversation turned serious as he mentioned he was a photographer for the US Marines during the war. "No many Americans come here".

After chatting a bit more, he stood up at the front of the bus and announced our itinerary and his wishes we have a nice trip.

Our first stop of the two would be to Mable Mountain, which I never heard of. When we arrived we were told we had 30 mins before the bus left. I got out first and it at first seemed like just a number of vendors selling the same things. Then I noticed a very large cave opening with some writing on it; a ticket booth was nearby.

"Ticket 15,000D" or about US$1. The entrance was lined with marble statues of pretty nice quality so I agreed. The Marble Mountain was a very entertaining and interesting experience. It is an enormous set of caves within a mountain and the first impression is the Dwarf city from Fellowship of the Ring. There were steps and railings all made from stone, and the ceilings in places were 50-100 feet high. Through many sets of rooms I made my way to some kind of an altar at the end, complete with lights and some pagan looking symbols. A staircase descended downwards.

It is here I realized this was somekind of physical representation of Dante's Inferno since as one descended various small scenes of pain or punishment were represented. It was slighly gory and disturbing but not more so than to get the idea across. Part of what made it so eerie was the lack of tourists as I was almost always by myself in this huge world within the mountain.

I looked at my watch and realised it was time to go. A quick stop in Danang was the last for the older gentleman I had talked to but wrote his email address on a card as I did in kind.

An hour later we had a quick lunch stop at a hotel near a beach. The weather had turned colder, windier, and darker from the clouds. It was somehow nice and reminded me of San Francisco. It had been a long time since I have felt COLDNESS and the hot vietnamese-style coffee I ordered was so nice.

Back on the bus then finally we arrive in Hue' around 1pm. All tour buses will drop you at their affiliated hotel and this one Binh Doung seemed fine. "US$7 for a single room with hot water." "I'll take it" I said, and dropped my bags off in room 506.

Rented a bicycle and went off to the citidel which I'll talk about tomorrow.

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