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Published: February 11th 2006
The mystical lagoon at Lang Co and a Spirit House
With the mountains shrouded in mist in the background. The spirit house is there to appease the spirits of the lagoon.Just before New Year we took the bus from Hoi An to Hue (still in Central Vietnam), from where we would be able to make our assault on Laos. The bus takes us first to Marble Mountain, it's raining and we haven't had any breakfast so rather than go and look around the wonderful hand-carved marble sculptures on display we headed straight for the coffee and baquettes! The Sculptors work at the foot of the mountain where great slabs of marble lie around.
The rest of the journey is through thickly-forested mountain passes, the cloud drifts like smoke from Red Indian fires. At the valley floor we arrive at Lang Co, surrounded by a mystical lagoon dotted with oyster nets and small boats. We stop for lunch at a roadside cafe and the driver says we have one hour while he goes and fixes the bus (you mean we came over those mountains with it broken?).
Denise decided to go for a walk along by the lagoon while I went to take some photos. After about half an hour I went back to the cafe to grab something to eat. After an hour still no sign of Denise. I
get anxious and go and try to find her, to no avail. As the bus might turn up at any minute I stay at the cafe. An hour and twenty minutes pass and no Denise (and no bus), now I'm thinking she's drowned in the lagoon or some poor fisherman has abducted her and will soon announce his ransom demands. Then the bus turns up and everyone jumps on, the driver hoots his horn and is about to go despite my protestations that my wife is missing, when around the corner saunters Denise souking some coke from a plastic bag and coolly enters the bus! Flabbergasted and frustrated I politely asked where the hell she had been! Turns out she has been sitting at another cafe opposite to where the bus was being fixed and then followed it down the road when it was ready to leave!
The rest of the journey was quiet (at least between the two of us). We arrived in a cold and rainy Hue, the bus stopped and some hotel touts jumped on and as we had no hotel booked for the night we took up their offer. Turned out to be quite a
Sculptures at Marble Mountain
The marble comes from the mountain in the background. nice place and at a reasonable price so we stayed there for 3 nights. Hue is supposed to be a nice place to visit as it is the old capital of Vietnam, but because of the bad weather we didn't get out of the hotel much to see anything!
The first night we went out for dinner at a floating restaurant on the Perfume River. I was wearing my new silk shirt for the first time (Denise said it covered my stomach nicely). The waitress on welcoming us to our table, giggled and patted my belly and said 'fat'! Not the sort of thing to normally say to your customer when they are about to order food from your restaurant! In protest I only had some vegetables and rice (I'm not sure whether this was to get revenge or because I wanted to cut down on the calorie intake, probably both). Then the waitress served Denise her wine which was only half a glass so Denise asked for her to fill it up a bit, she took it away and came back with another woman (the manager?) who promptly gave her the same half glass back! My rice was
stone cold but by that time I couldn't be bothered saying anything about it. At the end they tried to charge us for two towelettes and 3 packets of cashew nuts they had left on our table, but we had them sussed and we hadn't touched them! All in all, a masterclass in how not to run a restaurant (Fawlty-style).
On New Years Day and the weather still miserable we tried to cheer ourselves up by going out to buy some Pringles crisps, some Vietnamese Dalat wine (not bad actually) and some M & M's (the choice is limited). We went to the fancy 4 star hotel nearby and had a sauna. It was pretty bizarre getting changed as it was a small communal changing room, male and female!
We were very glad on 2nd Jan to leave by bus for the border and into Laos, and back to some sun.
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anonymous
non-member comment
Hue
I am so sorry your time in Hue wasn't good. I spent Jul and Aug 04 there. Nothing but a good time and the people so nice. I think you found a bad tourist trap. Thanks for the story about the river boat and eating. I did not try that and now I wont. Good luck. - chuck