Hue

---

We decided to leave Hoi An on our 10th day Sunday 5th June.

On the Saturday a big storm hit us in Hoi An. The first since we had arrived. We thought how lucky that we hadn't decided to leave on that day.

We had been expecting that we might have got a down pour each day this time of year but maybe we were lucky. It had been very hot the whole time though. Hight 30's each day.





Our last 2 days in Hoi An were quite relaxing. Having seen all we wanted to, we just enjoyed going to the places we were familiar with, relaxed in our lovely hotel and made arrangements for money and bookings so that we could travel further.





Some Dutch girls that we had met in a restaurant earlier on in our stay had recommended the city of Hue. Hue was 3 hours away by bus. It was a good test to see if we could handle the bus journey that we had read so many horrow stories about to see if we could handle it.





We booked our ticket at a travel shop on the street of the night market in Hoi An. It was slightly cheaper than booking at our hotel that took a chunk of commission for everything they sold.

Many of the accommodation places are very pushy for their guests to book extras with them. They all tend to sell anything at slightly higher prices than you can get on the street. I guess, if you want that convenience then you pay for it. For us, a walk next door is worth the saving.

We noticed that quite a few get stroppy when you book things else where. It really doesn't make sense because their being pushy makes you more uncomfortable as a guest and may make you want to move on else where whereas if you stayed longer they would do much better out of you financially than for the peanuts they get if you book a tour.

We felt a little bit of this at our homestay. "Where you going today?" "Have you booked already?" Why don't you go here?...." "Where you going next?" Their pushiness drove us away to book extras elsewhere and we didn't want to discuss much with them.

It was their only downside. Reading reviews on trip adviser shows that this behavior is extremely common in Vietnam.

Other than this our home stay was perfect.





We had breakfast as late as possible and also checked out at the last possible minute, 12 noon. We sat on some seats in the reception area with the fan blowing on us for the remaining hour and a half. If we had gone out for even a short walk we would have needed another shower.



A shuttle bus picked us up to take us to the bigger bus. It was about 15 minutes late and we had started to get nervous that it may not come. On the bus it was great to speak to other travelers. I asked where they had been, where they stayed, what they recommended and took notes as they told their stories.

So many of them we so much more adventurous than we were. I would like to read their blogs because I know that mine is boring in comparison. Many are younger and have much more energy, so maybe those days are gone for me.





So, we hopped on our bus and it was what is called an Open Tour Bus. This particular one was called Camel Travel. We later learned that there are about 4 companies that do exactly the same thing. As far as which is better we have learned that it is good or bad totally dependent on the river you happen to get and how they trat their passengers. There doesn't seem to be much fall back if someone is bad at their job, in this instance. There also doesn't seem to be much of an avenue for complaints and they don't seem to care if you do wish to make a complaint. They run the length of the country and mainly younger people buy tickets that they can hop on and off at different cities. Also Vietnamese use these buses and the customers were fairly varied as I noticed one Vietnamese woman with her small child travelling. We just bought one leg Hoi An- Hue. It only cost 88,000 VND on the street.



I was surprised at how comfortable this bus was. Upper and lower rows of reclining cushioned seats with little cubicles to tuck your feet in under the seat in front. Shoes had to be taken off at the door and put in little plastic bags and rugs were provided for overnight travel, when it got cold.

They even had a toilet on board but- dare I try it! That was part of the horror stories.

I had wet-wipes with me and once the seat was wiped down I felt I could relax. It wasn't bad at all. We decided that all the horror stories we read online about these open tour buses were only from people who had bad experiences and if the experience was OK then not many would report on it. The more you use these buses the more chance there would be of a bad experience, so hopefully our time was not yet to come.





I sat beside an Irish girl who didn't stop talking. Anyone in her proximity was her target for the entire trip. Once I put my music on my head phones it didn't bother me at all. She had people above behind and infront to use as targets and an old duck like me was not very interesting to her in any case.



The road took us under the Hai Van Pass, where we had been a few days earlier. This was the longest tunnel in South East Asia, 6.3 km.

When we emerged on the other side there were water ways and hovering peaks. Comparable to the south Island of New Zealand but much hotter and not as beautiful because it was not as pristine, nor clean. Still, it was beautiful for Vietnamese standards.

Thicker and darker clouds were lurking on this side of the pass and a storm hit an hour before arriving in Hue. All the scooter drivers seemed prepared with instant coverings of plastic ponchos.





My first impression of Hue was how modern, clean and spacious it looked. It must get busier and dirtier as we got closer to the center, I thought, but it didn't really.

It looked like a really lovely city. The perfume river was wide and beautiful.





The bus dropped us off just over the bridge on the side of town where the Imperial City was. We were a little confused as the guy we booked from had given us a completely different arrival address which was closer to our booked hotel and I had mapped our walking route from there.

All the taxi and cycle taxi drivers descended upon us wanting our business to take us to our hotel. We avoided all these as these are the operators that are renowned for scamming and robbing customers. We had light weight packs that were easy to carry, so using these could just make things more complicated if anything went wrong, so, for us, it wasn't worth the risk.

I was impressed that even though we declined their services they were still kind enough to help us with directions.





It was about a 20 minute walk to our hotel- "Than Thien- The Friendly Hotel". We could walk on wide pavements that were not crammed with scooters and the river was lined with beautiful green, landscaped gardens. There was a pleasant fresh breeze. The pavement we walked along was just on the opposite side of the road from the beautiful Perfume River. We were not hassled much at all once we started walking which was a very pleasant change from Hoi An, which had been overwhelming in this respect.





Checking in was easy as we had already pre-paid online. I knew that they were full because when I had last checked the website our room rate had changed from NZ$18 to NZ$250 to discourage people from booking. It must have been that there was no facility to block rooms from being booked on the website, so this was their way of managing that.



Our room was again amazing for what we had paid. The quality was equal to a $180 hotel room in Auckland. We had a beautiful big window, air con. fridge, modern, clean bathroom, free water, free WiFi, wardrobe, seating area, free toiletries (soap, toothbrush, comb, shampoo) and a buffet breakfast. The room was also fully serviced daily.





We went for a little exploratory walk in the evening on our way to find somewhere to eat. It was already dark when we arrived at the Hotel but our impressions of Hue were pretty impressive.

Initially we had booked 2 nights here but at the buffet breakfast the next morning we decided that a third night here was warranted. If for no other reason it was a cheap and pleasant place to just hang out.

While sitting at breakfast I went on to the Agoda booking site and booked and paid for a third night. I loved that I could do this without even having to speak to reception.



Buffet breakfast was awesome on each of our three mornings.

A wonderful assortment of exotic tropical fruits. All I could eat of mango, passion fruit, watermelon, dragon fruit and banana fried and fresh. Also personally made eggs, noodles, rice, spring rolls, dumplings. Unfortunately, after stuffing myself at the first buffet breakfast I never really felt hungry enough to really take advantage of it on the successive mornings. It was still nice for us to just sit for an hour or so and linger over it all. We decided that, for us, a buffet breakfast might be appreciated once a week but we looked forward to breakfast more when it was a set menu.



During the day we went in and out for little explorations along the beautiful river gardens, trying to avoid the heat and sun.





In the evening we walked to the Imperial City. The weather was much more pleasant in the evenings for walking and the streets were full of people that came out of the woodwork. Hue had coloured lights, festively decorating the streets and the beautiful bridges also had changing colours of lights decorating them.

We crossed the bridge and squeezed to the side of one of the tunnels to the Imperial City, sharing the narrow road with all the passing scooters.

Once we emerged on the other side of the tunnel motorbikes were restricted from entering many of the spaces. There were huge areas of open spaces. Families were walking and playing among the backdrop of the spectacular illuminated remains of the Ancient Imperial City and Citadel.

It felt very special to be there and we could not see any other Western tourists. We felt that we were seeing a very authentic side of this city that few others saw.

Due to the fact that there were no other tourists around there was also no one around trying to push us to buy things. This made our discovery even more pleasant and relaxing. This was not so much of a problem in Hue, as it had been in Hoi An but there was still a certain degree of it especially noticeable when we walked back to our hotel, in the tourist area at night

We walked a big loop and exited the Imperial City through a different tunnel from which we had entered. Before crossing the bridge of changing colours to go back to our hotel Tomas stocked up on snacks for our onward journey at a supermarket.



After crossing the bridge I walked back to the hotel. Tomas followed 10 mins later and when he arrived he reported that walking back as a single man was a very different experience to walking around with me. Walking through the tourist area all sorts of offers are shoved in your face. People shout for your attention. Tomas reported that drugs and massages were offered much more readily on his walk home alone than they were when walking with me.



At breakfast we met a couple who had just got married in Cambodia. We had been trying to guess where they came from. The guy looked unmistakably Australian and I needed to confirm that I was right, which I was. His now wife was American but they lived in Australia. They were travelling for 3 months and interestingly were possibly about to move to Auckland for work. We were meeting so many people who were travelling for extended periods of time.



This day in Hue was spent avoiding the heat of the day but the afternoon presented with heavy dark clouds and rain. Tomas had man-flu, hopefully a full rest day would knock it out.



We bit the bullet and bought a sleeper bus ticket to Hanoi. Having had experimented with the bus on the way here we are nervous but hoping that the next experience will not be any worse. This would be a 14 hour journey overnight so would be different from the short 3 hour journey that we had just experienced. Again they would pick us up from our hotel and take us all the way to Hanoi. They picked us up at 5 pm. We actually ended up arriving in Hanoi at 6 am, so it was quicker than estimated.



I'll write about this experience next time.

---

Photos

Dragon Boats On the Perfume River.
Tours Available whenever you Want, no need to book. There are hundreds of them eager to take you.

The Imperial Citadel at Night
From Inside the Imperial City Gates

Bye Bye Hue
Taken From the bus on the way to Hanoi