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Published: April 15th 2013
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Citadel
flag out front After 15 hours of being cuddled in the back of a bus we arrived in Hue. We walked about ½ mile to the street with all the hotels—which was peachy for me since Fin #1 talked me into leaving my large backpack in Nanning and just packing a few things in a daypack for the Vietnam adventure. I was doing heal clicks on the sidewalks of Hue while the others were a bit less excited to be walking distances. We get a nice little hotel—myself and the Irish girls shared one room and the Fins took another. There is not much to do in Hue, besides for rejoicing in the fact that we’re not on Cat Ba Island any longer.
We walk around for a bit, find that there are numerous eateries and bars—nearly every place is cheaper than the cheapest place we found in Cat Ba Town, this is a huge relief to us all. The attractions in Hue are few and far between, but there are tours to the DMZ (demilitarized zone north of town) and more locally they have “The Citadel” which housed a few emperors. The ladies and I walk to the Citadel only to circumnavigate
Tall guy and Vietamese kids
this was on the dmz tour...this bridge and river are special in some way. the kids want money from Brandon it in the wrong direction and end up walking about 2 miles in the wrong direction…then we got rained on. That was just enough to deter us from entering the Citadel and actually going back to the hotel to re-group.
We set up a tour for the next day to head to the DMZ, which we’re looking forward to. The Fins have decided to move on, but we’ll meet up with them in the next town. The DMZ tour was interesting. Our “English” tour guide spoke some form of English that I am not acquainted with—nor were any of the other English speakers on the tour. But we headed to what I assume were several key spots of conflict, victory, and/or devastation during the Vietnam War. The most interesting were the tunnels that the Vietnamese dug out and lived in on and off for 6 years!! These wreaked havoc on my back and the back of anyone else on the tour that was over 5’7’’ tall. There happen to be a Californian on the tour, Brandon, who was about 6’4’’, so although he was jazzed to see the tunnels. He was just as jazzed to stand up straight again.
rice paddies
i likes me some rice paddies Of the sites we saw, we went to 2 museums which had hawkers all about selling Vietnam War memorabilia. The most haunting were the dog tags or metals of American soldiers. Their authenticity is uncertain, but they definitely look aged enough to send chills up/down your spine…being a little to close to home for me, I avoided these guys.
Hue was a great little place to re-set after a nightmare few days on Cat Ba. The people were lovely (some of the men are a little too friendly) but that is just a re-occurring theme around these parts. We were able to set up a bus to head down to HoiAn, which would be my final destination in Vietnam before reversing course and heading back to China…
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