The other problem Ngyuen warned us about was that the train rocks quite a bit, and it can be hard to sleep because of it. Luckily, I actually found this rather relaxing, and so was lulled to sleep rather than being kept up.
In the evening, the scenery was still all concrete, and besides that it was night time, so there really wasn't much to see. This changed by the time I woke up; first there was a fairly mountainous area, with lots of jungle, and very little human activity at all, followed by wide plains, covered in paddy fields and tapioca plantations. After a half decent night's sleep, and a half morning watching the world roll by, we arrived in Hue.
Hue was the Vietnamese capital from 1800 to 1945 (or something like that), when the Nguyen dynasty ruled the country. Despite that, it only has a population of 400,000 (compared to Hanoi's 7,000,000), so everything is much more laid back here, especially the traffic. Our hotel was a step up too, the twin room has twin double beds, and the room was probably twice the size of our room in Hanoi overall. I was now sharing with Steve for some reason, but this was fine with me, he seems very nice.
We had a little time to rest and grab a shower, before nipping to lunch at a very nice restaurant quite near the river. I had duck with 5 spices which Ngyuen recommended, and I wasn't disappointed. A few of us braved the '20 minute' walk back, which turned out to be a 40 minute walk. Luckily it wasn't sunny, as a) it is generally 4-5 degrees hotter in Hue than Hanoi, meaning high 30s are very common, and b) I hadn't put any sun cream on since it was overcast when we left.
Another little rest ensued, before it was time for a walking tour of the citadel, and imperial buildings (most of which were ruined in the war and are slowly being reconstructed). This took us back the way we had walked shortly before, but it still wasn't sunny, so this was ok.
We took some photos whilst waiting for Ngyuen to buy some tickets, mainly of a huge flag whose purpose I forgot to ask, and which has not since become apparent. We had to leave the mystery flag to enter.
The first attraction was some voracious koi carp, who clustered so densely around any dropped food that sometimes a fish would have to flop away along the backs of it's friends to get back into the water. The next attraction was an insane French person who came over to Dave shouting 'so tall, so tall'. He then switched to French for 'deux metre, deux metre?!?' which Dave knowing no French at all did not understand. The French man's guide came to the rescue, asking Dave if he was over 2 meters tall. Yes, he was 204cm was the answer passed back, and this seemed to placate the man.
We moved on to their version of the Houses of Parliament, and were just photographing some unicorns when I saw a determined figure striding in our direction. The height obsessed French man was back. I tried to warn Dave in a low voice, but he was just too fast. Evidently he wasn't satisfied earlier, as he opened with 'deux metre, deux metre'. The French guide was nowhere to be seen, and someone had to do something as the French man's enthusiastic horizontal chopping to indicate height was getting closer and closer to Dave's throat. I was our only hope, but I couldn't remember what a hundred in French was (it is cent, but I was under pressure!). 'Deux zero quarte' I said desperately. He looked up at Dave, nodded, and left. Now we could tour in peace!
There were no photos allowed in the Houses of Parliament, as they didn't want anyone to copy the throne and devalue it or something. It wasn't exactly amazing, but whatever. Only the king, his 4 top mandarins (officials), and his family were allowed in this building. All the lesser ministers had to sit outside and the front of the building was opened up so they could all see the king. This building was only used for special bi monthly meetings though, if a mandarin wanted to meet with the king normally, he would go to the forbidden purple city, where we visited next.
Or I should say, we visited the ruins next. Honestly there isn't a lot left right now, just some stubs of walls, and a random horse eating grass right in the middle of where the palace used to be. They have started the restoration of this section with the exterior walkways, and the buildings will come later. As we wandered around, Ngyuen explained what each plot's former purpose was. I didn't take many pictures as there wasn't much to see, but the tour was interesting enough.
After a while we exited the citadel, and went back to the hotel for another short rest, before a trip to a local home for dinner. Whilst it was being prepared, we sat and talked (via Ngyuen) with a 90 year old woman who owned the house.
It wasn't long before we were ushered through to the dining room, and asked what we wanted to drink. One of the offerings was Vietnamese rice wine, which I went for. Big mistake. The small one for 30,000 dong (just under £1) came in a 500ml water bottle. It was 35%, and tasted like 70%. And paint stripper. I had as many little cups as I could bear, and left the rest; they can probably use it to power their scooters or something.
The food was much more enjoyable, in fact it was the best I've had this holiday. First was pumpkin and peanut soup, which apparently used nothing but pumpkin, peanut, salt, and sugar, and was amazing. The spring rolls which came next were also very nice, if not quite at the soup's standard, then came the beef and tofu stew, which was amazing, probably one of the nicest foods I've ever had. Unfortunately it couldn't help but go downhill from there, but star fruit and beef pho (noodle soup), jackfruit salad, and pineapple were all very nice. About a stone heavier, we ordered the taxis to take us back to the hotel.
Why is the old lady taking a tour of her own place?
ReplyDeleteShe is a super keen tourist
ReplyDelete