Over the mountains to Hue after dragging ourselves away kicking and screaming from the splendours of the Nam Hai, we drove North over the Hai Van pass and its spectacular scenery. We are reverting to backpacking and found our charming little hostel at £15 a night is actually a lovely boutique hotel with in room aircon, fridge tv, etc (and even a hairdryer for Gill!) plus your own pc with internet , in the backpacker district. Hue is the ancient Imperial capital of Vietnam, with a citadel surrounded by large walls, a moat and an inner city modelled on the Forbidden City in Beijing. We explored most of the city on foot and even the odd cyclo in crazy moped and pushbike traffic as well as torrential downpours, at one point flooding the streets. Hairdressing was on our mind in Hue -Ant gets a haircut – including a full head massage, shaving of head, ears, eyebrows in a small street barbers. Another Vietnamese fake was spotted – a Toni & Guy salon – but Gill declined this opportunity, she doesn’t buy fake handbags so why would she have a fake haircut! We also stop for what we thought may be the equivalent of a Starbucks in a small trendy new enterprise in a citadel backstreet. We can report that this was one thing that was not fake – it sure wasn’t anything like a Starbuck’s. Ant’s coffee, dribbled through an aluminium cup into two teaspoons of condensed milk, giving him a full inch of coffee in his cup! But it was 30% off day, so we paid 30p in total. In typical fashion we escape the tourist trail and entertain ourselves by stopping at riverside cafes near the sampan village, sitting on minute red plastic seats at the edge of the road chatting by dictionary to the café owner and her young son. The sampan village was unbelievable, whole families existing on small narrow boats moored at the edge of a river tributary. Gill was shocked to see two elderly ladies defecating into the river and chatting away – results from Ant’s sneaky cam attached.) The local restaurant was washing up just downstream…… Just behind the beauty salons attached to the colourful fruit and veg market, we catch a ferry back to our side of the river where we were ferried across the river by a local boat owner. We had discovered a back packer hangout called the DMZ Café and bar, a graffiti adorned, loud music’ed pool bar which we have made our home base over the 3 days we have been here. Staff now know us, we have even added to the graffiti by marking “Gill, Ant and Kev, London 2008” on the wall outside – but Banksy need have no fear of competition! We are sitting there right now, nicking the free wifi from the posh hotel across the road, but as backpackers, needs must! We had a light lunch of pizza and our Hue days continued with a visit to Tu Doc in the pouring rain (added to the atmosphere), where Emperor Tu Doc lived and died. He had a nice little pad. We moved on (speed sightseeing as usual…) to the Thien Mu Pagoda, where we saw the car that took the monk (Thich Quang Duc) whose famous picture of his self immolation was flashed around the world in 1963. We then walk through the monastery where, a bit like a human zoo, we watch the monks eat a very nice Vietnamese dinner – we weren’t invited to join! We had our dinner in grand style at a Hue Imperial banquet in a little wooden house tucked away in the corner of the Citadel where they serve over complicated and decorated cuisine with carrots and other veg as carved Phoenix ‘es and peacocks. Deserts appear to be a tree, but taste like a big baked bean wrapped in tasteless red jelly – artistic but inedible. The original wooden house was charming, and the barking frogs reminded us of the Dyl. Hue is a couple of hours south of the DMZ (Demilitarised zone) which marked the old border between South and North Vietnam and hence was the focus of massive amount of fighting during the American war. We hired a guide for the day. He had lived though it all and his stories where initially interesting, but frankly we soon got a bit bored! Over 3 million Vietnamese died compared to 59,000 Americans. We visited one of the larger Vietnamese cemeteries, the Troung Son, with 10,000 war dead from the guarding and construction of the Ho Chi Minh trail. We loved crossing the Ben Hai River which separates the North from the South and walked from one side to the other. Due to the blanket bombing of the area, entire villages went underground, living in tunnels up to 25 metres deep to escape the B52’s above only coming out to tend their fields when the Americans were not flying by. Amazing ingenuity and at the village we visited, the Vinh Moc on Cua Tung beach, no one was killed underground. We also stopped at the Doc Mieu base, from where the Americans could bomb North Vietnam to a distance of 30 kms. On the drive back we stop to look at the Vietnamese cemeteries, we had seen many from the train journeys and they are collections of very ornate edifices with paintings depicting the deceased’s life. We also asked to stop to see pepper growing – the harvest for pepper, as with rice, is due soon. We stop at someone’s garden, look at their trees, pick and taste a bit of pepper and with a wave to the owners and not even a bye your leave, waft away…. bit like the Queen and Prince Philip. As always an Hue day ends at the DMZ Café – this time we travelled the DMZ (actual) to the DMZ (café) and a pizza again. As we sit here whiling away the afternoon like true backpackers and writing our blog, we reflect on our time in Hue before our next adventures in Hanoi. We recall our stay in Hue was enhanced by the regular power cuts – one day for seven hours. Hue has been a gentle reintroduction to backpacking, we’ve enjoyed the Hue days we’ve had, in particular watching the world go by on two wheels, bikes laden with everything from people to fruit to furniture. We wander back to the Orchid hotel and see yet another large rat scampering in our path and disappearing down the nearest drain – lovely! See you in Hanoi - shopping forecast good, weather forecast poor.
