Blogs from North Central Coast, Vietnam, Asia - page 3

Hué was hot - in more ways than one When we travelled south through Vietnam we made a stop in the city Hué. The main reason we went there, and the main reason most foreigners go there, was to visit the former royal palace or, as it is officially called, the Imperial City. This former royal palace is so large that it is not an exaggeration to call it "The Imperial City". It is in fact an incredibly large place. The main compound alone is so immense that it is hard to take it all in when you walk through it. But the Imperial City might be an even bigger area than what you see at first glance. Back when Vietnam was a monarchy and they had a royal family roaming around in Hué we think ... read more

After a fairly good sleep we arrived in Hue to a pretty bleak outlook but surprisingly it cleared up into a bright day (27c but much higher humidity than to date). After a late breakfast we were set up with our new bikes which will take us the rest of the way to HCMC (happy to return my old one as it had seen better days). Riding was restricted to a leisurely 40kms exploring the former imperial capital of Vietnam as well as getting used to our new bikes. Stops on the way included the war ruins of the Forbidden Purple City, the Imperial Citadel, temples, tombs and pagodas. The Forbidden City was hugely damaged by the French after they tried to reclaim the country after WW2 & further damaged during the Tet offensive. Some of ... read more

Suddenly miss the food after seeing many short clip of Vietnam, with the super cheap ticket, I heading out Danang. No idea or not care about whatever sights although I'd been there before, just see what I will see, mostly important was...food!!! I said I was there before, but...nothing...actually nothing was the same, luckily Danang wasn't a big city, so laid myself in the little guesthouse than I started my food trip right away. Bun...Banh...spring roll...all are lovely. then I went up to Hue, then down south a bit to Quy Nhon, the last is Nha Trang and finish my trip.... read more

Our train got into Hue around 1pm and after following maps on our phone and ignoring signs on the road we eventually noticed the 10ft sign and checked into our hotel. We were starving by this time and went straight for the nearest street food food fried rice we could get our mits on. We then hired bicycles (bit of an error, should have forked out for mopeds in hindsight) and began making our way to the abandoned water park. It was raining pretty hard which meant we couldn't use our phone gps so we had to keep stopping, taking shelter, having a peak and trying to remember the directions "ok, second left, fork right, 5th left, 2nd exit on roundabout, cross the bridge, look out for a hotel...." needless to say we couldn't ever agree ... read more

It is happening again. Of course it happened again. I guess I spoke too soon! I wasn't as drunk in the morning as I was on my journey to Bangkok but running on three hours sleep after one last night out in Ho Chi Minh City, I should've been tired. As it turned out, I was awake for most of the first leg of my 23-hour bus to Hoi An, on board a a sleeper bus the like of which I have never seen before. Three rows of bunks are separated by two aisles barely wide enough to let people through but rather than having a bench to sleep on like you do in India, you instead get a reclinable seat that almost goes all the way down. You have a cubby hole in front of ... read more