Boats, Tombs & Tanks

It was a short trip to Hue (pronounced like you are saying 'way' with a H sound in front of it) and the bus dropped us a mile or two outside town, in front of some expensive hotel that he gets commission from. Never mind, we ended up finding a nice spot closer to town, and the next day we moved to an even nicer place which was right in the heart of town. It even had a pool. Who says you cant go swimming in wet season? for 7 bucks a night we thought it was a bargain being able to swim 4 times a day, often in the rain.

From the time we finally had our accommodation sorted out, we both had a great time in Hue. We went on a boat trip up the river to visit some of the old tombs of past rulers, and to see the local pagodas. The best part was just being able to relax on a nice old boat chugging it's way up the river. That's one thing that separates Vietnam from the other countries in Southeast Asia that we have seen so far - the scenery here is amazing. I mean, we have seen some beaches and mountains and all sorts of fields and things, but Vietnam just does it all so much better. The mountain ranges here are totally breathtaking, and the rice paddies are even greener than those in Cambodia. We are planning on visiting the mountain region of Sapa in a week or so, and we will get to have a closer look at the mountains then. Cant wait for that.

Apart from the boat trip up the river, Kate and I also visited the local market, where we found the freshest baguettes, stuffed with chinese sausage, coriander, pate and other things. delicious, and only about 50c.

Oh and in case you havent heard, Vietnam is crazy about noodle soup. I reckon they eat more noodles here than rice, and boy are there a lot of noodle vendors. they vary from deadset crap containing entrails and elbows; all the way up to mind bogglingly awesome bowls of freshness. well we found a few in each category in Hue, and were very happy with the soups overall.

Later during our stay in Hue kate and I went to visit the Forbidden City, which was basically a town inside an ancient walled area. we visited the palace grounds there, and agreed that palace grounds on our trip so far have not been worth the price of admission.

While walking around town, we came across what looked like a parking lot for tanks. it turned out to be an unofficial museum for old vietnam war hardware. There were US tanks and artillery which were captured by the Liberation Army in the 70's, and some of the anti-air artillery used by the Liberation Army against the US planes during the war. Now we have seen a fair few tanks and things of that nature so far on the trip, but here in Hue we found a rusty old M48 Patton tank that put all other tanks to shame. This thing was HUGE. apparently these were the primary tanks used by the US during the Vietnam War.

anyway, Hue was a heap of fun, but after 4 days or so it was time to go. So now we are in Hanoi, and we will update you on what we experience here once we actually have something interesting to report.

//Brendan