Hue is pretty impressive… We would have done well to stay here longer, but as it happens, we only had a day here.
Hue is home to an enormous Citadel in the middle of the city. It was built in the 1800s although it looks like it could be 1000 years old. It was home to the royal palace and also some bloody battles in the Vietnam War.
It’s also hot. Damn hot. Due to the enormous gardens and greenery everywhere within the 10km circumfrence of the citadel, it just amps up the humidity and it’s moister than a fat girl’s sock. We basically walked for 5 minutes, took a rest for 10 and went through a litre of water. Rinse (literally) and repeat.
Took some great photos if we do say so ourselves, including bullet holes in the old walls at the site of the battles.
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From there, we went into the city more, had a few drinks & lunch at the well-known DMZ bar, then tried to source our trip to Halong Bay. Now that’s an ordeal… there’s a hundred different options to choose from all with slightly different accommodation; itineraries and inclusions/exclusions. In the end, it was pretty simple, we only found 1 mob who would allow us a 2-night stay… 1 on the boat/junk and 1 on CatBa Island, the biggest island within Halong Bay.
We tried a river cruise which was about 90 minutes and went up and down the river. A very pleasant way to finish the day before having a very traditional meal at a non-tourist restaurant… we are branching out! The food was really tasty and rather cheap cheap! Not sure it agreed with Ben so much or if it was something from earlier in the day.
We had a late flight to Hanoi at 22:10 which quickly became 23:20 when we got to the airport… of course we got there early due to previous “issues” with our last flight, and so we had 3+hrs to kill. Apparently sitting in front of the fan in a non-airconditioned building is a no-no over here… No fan for you!
Some very weary travelers eventually arrived in Hanoi and to our hotel at about 1am, ready for a 7:30am departure for Halong Bay… Best part of the travel was the taxi into Hanoi from the airport where we saw the market sellers taking their goods in for the morning (this is after midnight remember)… we could not get over how much they can fit on the back of a motorbike… If only we could have taken photos. Put it this way – we scoffed at one guy for *only* having a bail of herbs/green stuff the height of him behind him. The others had at least double if not triple that. Imagine panier bags but ones that almost touch the ground and go out double the width of the bike full of flowers, herbs, morning glory (leafy greens), cabbages – you name it.
The next 3 days – Halong Bay, potentially one of the new 7 natural wonders of the world!