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Hi!
We had a quick stop over of 2 days at the city of Hue, to see the city and also some of the countryside of central Vietnam.
We arrived after lunch from our bus in Hoi An, and checked into a hotel in the backpacker area, the best bit was that it had a swimming pool :) We went to a cafe to have one of our newly discovered favourite dishes "Aubergine in Claypot" (supposed to be caramelised), however this was nothing like it! It was only because we were so hungry it got eaten, really spongy lumps of aubergine in a carbonara sauce?! very strange tasting...
We headed off after that to the main attraction of Hue- the "Citadel"- a really large walled city, which contains Imperial Enclosure where the Emperor once lived. The imperial closure was pretty impressive, it used to have over 140 buildings, but after the bombings in the Vietnam war only 20 were left. We saw some impressive temples and a palace. We wandered past the city market, Tom was looking for a local Hue specialility snack, but nothing there we found very appetising, a lot of raw fish !
That evening we went swimming, had a nice meal including banh khoai- very small crispy crepe filled with shrimp, pork and beansprouts and you dip it in a sauce. We heard that the portions were supposed to be smaller in central Vietnam, and they definatley were small!, starter size- Toms beef dish he ordered had just 2 small pieces of meat on a plate, nothing else.We ended up going out for drinks with a couple that had just graduated from Nottingham University, Laura was Tom's Persidaent for Derby Hall when he started 2 years ago, strange coinscidence!
We had booked the next day to go on a motorbike trip with the "Hue Riders" to see tombs, beaches and countryside around Hue. It was a brilliant day!, we got picked up at 9 by our 2 drivers in good sunny weather and set off... there was around a 30 min delay as the bike Tom was on broke down, and then both bikes got seperated at one point, but then it was fine. We set off to see the City of Tombs, and went through small villages and country lanes that our big sleeper buses woudl never go down. It was really interesting just watching the surroundings by motorbike- saw waterbuffalows walking on the streets, chickens tied on bikes ready for market, harvested rice being brought down on boats by the river and being dried out on the roads...
TheCity of Tombs was very interesting!, our guide Tam explained that after the war, many people went to America and earnt a lot more money, and they sent money back to their families. The families didnt know what to so with so much money, and so they started building big tombs/graves for their families. This became a competition between famlilies in the village to whose could be the most grand, often they would knock down the competitions tombs so theirs would look better! These grave sites/ Tombs are HUGE and cost over $40 000!, they are all like minature temples, so colourful and there are thousands of them. We were the only people there, its about the first time a place we have visited hasn't been crowded!
We headed back on the bikes and Tam switched on his sound system, so we drove through the countryside listening to U2's "Its a beatiful day" and then some vietnamese songs. We drove past a big lagoon and saw the house boats where the locals fish for clams and these are bought by the government and exported. Next stop was to Lag Co beach, which was really beatiful long stretch of white sand with clear water, there wwas only 1 other family on the beach so it was pretty much deserted. We ordered some fried rice and vegetables with garlic to eat on little stools by the shore, and even though hthe food was simple it was cooked so well and the portions were very large! We swam in the water and relaxed for about an hour, before getting back onto the bikes. We then went to a little village where Ho Chi Minh lived for 2 years, it was supposed to be a museum but it was only just the hut where he lived, we were given some inscense to burn.
Around the corner was a 2 day festival which we were told was to honour 2 men from the village who had gone abroad and become a doctor and engineer, now they had graduated they came back to remember their home land. We were invited to come and watch a bit, we didnt know what was going on really, there was a lot of singing and praying and people were dressed very formally. We got a huge amount of stares and smiles from the local people which was funny!
After that we drove back to Hue, going through more country side and also into rain! A really fun trip! we got to see a bit of the "real Vietnam" away from all of the other tourists :)
We then waited for a couple of hours until our bus arrived to take us to Ninh Binh which is where we are now. It was the most ridiculously uncomfortable journey with little space for legs or any movement at all. We were supposed to arrive at 7 30am, but arrived at 5 30 am on the side of a road, pretty disorientated after being asleep! Luckily there was a hotel close by and we managed to get a few hours sleep. Going on a boat journey today down the Tam Coc river today, hoepfully the weather improves a bit!
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kristy Enjoying keeping up with your adventures! Hope to look at the pictures more extensively when we get home!