Hue, Vietnam
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Our journey to Hue was a pretty speedy affair. En route we stopped off at a service station (random restaurant in the middle of nowhere) and were wooed by a guy selling us a tour round the DMZ zone. With time not on our hands we figured this would be a good use of the day that had mainly been spent inside the rickety bus. So after breakfast we all (including Margo, the English boys and some Canadian Girls we had befriended) crammed into a mini bus and journeyed to where the tour began. The tour guide, knew his town very well, spoke in very clear detail of the goings on in the war, and spoke of the divide the country had. We first saw the memorials, and the graves of the named and unamed soldiers. Apparently some people hired mediums for a very large amount of money so they could find their loved ones, sad. This was back in the day before DNA testing, now all the mediums have very surprisingly disappeared... Next we saw the museum in the north of Vietnam and walked the bridge to the south of Vietnam past the huge speakers that were used to shout abuse over the river to each other. (Ï quite fancy getting some myself to wake the Hopley up in the morning, the new dawn chorus-Hannah) After a quick stop at another monument, we drove to the Tunnels. They were amazing, huge underground network of tunnels (more like mazes), three levels. one bomb shelters, another family roooms, hospitals, meeting areas, and another, bedrooms toilets and maternity wards. It was all there in the tiny passage ways, anything you would ever need. After walking the tunnels we left for our hostel in Hue.
Hue is a pretty little town (when there isn't torrential downpours), home of the Perfume river and an Imperial City. A very large riverside market and a bridge lit up by many colours. We investigated them all. The imperial city was really something. We had expected something very similar to the forbidden city in China but no, this was different. It had essence of Chinese, but was full of french influences (bit like a large dish of garlic fried frogs legs served with noodles) the imperial city was home to large fields, lucious walled gardens, colorfully decorated temples and a reading home decorated with marble mosaics over looking a peaceful lake.
A day of cycling round the rest of the city, to see the back roads, which seemed to be full of puppies and small children, and a quick look through the vast market before it was time to catch our bus to the next destination... Hoi An
