Blog : Hue

Arriving back from Halong Bay we had literally an hour to sort our s*** out before catching the 15 hour overnight sleeper bus down to Hue. I went out to try and get a sandwich for the journey as I knew I'd be grumpy if I didn't manage to get any dinner in and also to pick up a vietnese SIM card as I would miss my scheduled Skype date with B so wanted to be able to message him whilst I was on the bus at least... I dragged Sebastian with me because he already had a SIM card and which seemed to have a good signal so I wanted him to arrange the same thing for me! I also managed to get a tuna sandwich which bonus came with chips as well, which I gobbled before the bus even arrived! We were all desperately standing in Anna's travel agent shop trying to charge our phones/iPods/laptops etc when we got shooed up the road And made to stand on a street corner with all of our luggage and sandwiches hanging out of our mouths, waiting for a minibus to pick us up and take us to the actual bus... We got to the Camel bus office, which we later learnt was the s***test of all the coach company's stretching the coast of Vietnam. We exchanged our recipes for tickets and went to board the bus which was in the middle of a repair job so none of us could get on. It was a normal coach but it had three aisles of bunk beds, one right on the floor and the top one pretty high, with the most flimsy of barriers! This particular bus was full of mini cockroaches and other rank looking bugs, crawling all over everything! The beds were almost fully reclineable but pretty uncomfortable as the there was no where to put your day sack with you valuables in, other than in the foot well so we all sat for 15 hours with our legs crumpled up or hanging over the edge of our seats into the tiny narrow gangway. The toilet on the bus (thank god it had one) was the most disgusting smelly thing in the world, covered in piss everywhere and had the most rank shoes in it ever - we all had to take our shoes off to board the bus and you wernt meant to wear them at all, so this pair was 'complimentary' to wear whilst squatting on the toilet - so so so horrible am covered in piss. Al went for a wee and the bus went over quite a big bump and she came out saying her whole face had hot against the side of the wall and was covered in piss..Needless to say I used about half my anti bac on that journey! I sat and wrote my blog, laughed at Kate trying to kill every bug she came across and started my new audio book, which was great! There was a lot of local people on out bus and some that even lay on straw mats in the gangway to sleep as the bus was overbooked. There was a chappy behind me who at one point lit up a cigar and started smoking it on the bus, blowing his smoke i to an empty drinks can and looking like a naughty teenager! i was not impressed and i think my looks round to him said it all and it put it out pretty quickly!! There was another behind Nelen who was coughing her guts up every thirty seconds and spitting great big balls into a plastic bag by her head, so gross! The fifteen hour journey was pretty long and I think we only had two toilet stops the whole way! Not so great! I did manage to get a couple of hours sleep but the bus was so cold, with so many warm bodies that the windows were all condensed and I felt pretty groggy getting off, especially having been on the move off such a long time!

We got to Hue bus station and it was raining :( the bus station looked like it was in the middle of nowhere as well and so we jumped in a cab and just went to the sister hotel to the one we all stayed in, in Hanoi, the Backpackers. It was an alright hostel, quite small though and I suspect we were pretty lucky for all seven of us to turn up with no booking and manage to get beds! Because we got to Hue so early, about 6 or 7am we had to hang around for ages in the hostel restaurant area until midday to check in. We were all in a bit of a daze and just sat hooked onto the wifi mindlessly searching the net! Al, Christa and Helen all went for a massage which they said was 'interesting!' And I sat looking at a map of Hue and working out what things we should do. We almost immediately booked our bus out of Hue for the following day - we didn't really like the vibe of the place and were all keen to head further south, to try and find some warmer weather! When we could finally get I to our rooms we found it very bizzare that some of the beds in the dorm were double bunk beds. Kate and I ended up sharing a top double bunk together which was fine in the end but I was pretty scared about kicking her over the edge! We dumped our stuff and as there was only one shower we decided not to bother all trying to pile through it so together, horrendously smelly we went to get some lunch. The western reception girl gave us some directions to a good local Vietnamese place to eat and we walked there in the rain. Al and I had vegetable noodles but mine were full of Asian mushrooms which are all slippery and gross so I had to pick them all out!! The boys had pizza though which I thought was hilarious in such a local style restaurant!

In the afternoon we all got a taxi out to the tomb of the eighth king of Vietnam, which was nearby and recommended by one of the travel guides we had between us! It was a relatively long taxi journey and we were all a bit peeved when we got there and found we had to pay to get in :/ quite a lot of money as well but as we'd come all that way we decided to in the end. There was loads of concrete statues of Asian men dotted around the temple, which looked like bizzare upright graves! I got the big camera out so I could take lots of good snaps. Inside the palace there was a massively golden and bejewelled room with a statue of the king sat on his throne, which we guessed was his actual burial site. It was so elaborate and ornate and he looked like such a young man - he died at 43. It was quite a weird experience as we were all a little bit wired and grumpy from the bus journey and no sleep and a couple of people really weren't feeling so good. There was also no guide or audio or signs to explain what we were looking at or tell the story of certain objects in glass cabinets, like an English china set or an old wardrobe! So we didn't really feel like we learnt that much and off we went back to the hostel. We wanted to go swimming next to the public pool which was round the corner from the hostel but naively we didn't realise it would be unheated and outside, as we were fantasising about saunas and hot tubs! So we turned it down in favour of a swanky hotel across the road from the hostel but they said to us that access to the swimming pool and the spa were separate, time limited and pretty expensive. Oh and we couldn't use the showers. I didn't want to pay the ten dollars or so (v confusing to use so many different currencies!) to get all warm in the spa before having to put dirty clothes on all over again and get cold running down the road to our hostel and waiting for the shower! Back to the hostel we all went and started Qing for the shower. I thought I was being really clever by using the shower on the ground floor in the reception toilets but after about 1 minute of hot water, enough time to lure me into a false sense of security, I put my head under to wash my hair, the water then turned icy cold and I could wash fast enough and get out. I dashed up three flights of stairs in my towel and got into bed and sat shivering until I warmed up! Kate al and I went with Sebastian for a romantic meal for four, for dinner! We walked up our road a little bit, passing some pretty smart looking restaurants and not really looking twice at them but Sebastian flounder one with a promo: buy a pizza and get a free beer and the pizzas were the cheapest on the road, so we were sold and in we went! We all sat shivering still though in our v thin clothes and only jumpers, with scarfs draped all round us,m because the whole if the front of the restaurant was big open doors - wide open in the seemingly arctic conditions!! We all ordered a tomato soup to star which was delicious and probably enough on its own but I then managed to chow down a margarita pizza and a half too! It was a pretty cheap dinner - about £4 for everything which we were happy about and it was nice as well for western food! As we came out of the restaurant we saw the other girls in the pub on the corner so Sebastian and Al went to join them whilst KV and I retired to the room as we were knackered having not slept very well in the bus from Hanoi. I had a lovely FaceTime chat with B whilst sat out on the balcony freezing my t*** off but it was worth it and not long after about 10pm the others all came home to hit the hay as well.

We had all planned to get up relatively early the following morning, so that we could walk and see the Hue imperial city (Citadel) which was probably the main attraction of the area before having to leave to catch our next bus. We didn't though! By the time we'd all had breakfast and checked out we only had an hour to spare before the bus, so we jumped into a taxi quickly and went over the river to have a super quick glance round the imperial city. Again naively we didn't realise wed gave to pay to get in although Tom and I were very naughty and just sauntered through the open exit gate, rather than past the ticket deck at the entrance. I didn't look back to see if the others were following and not did I run when I thought the security guard was behind me, as I thought that would make us much more obvious! The imperial city had a lot of badly damaged buildings and in places the wall surrounding it had been broken or fallen down. It was interesting yo get a sense of how it did once look though, which we could get the jist of through looking at some of the restoration photos. The gardens and landscaping were very oriental in style, with symmetrical ponds and beautifully manicured plants in the shapes of animals!

We didn't really see that much of Hue at all before we boarded our next bus down the coast at lunchtime to Hoi An. It wasn't a city for us though as there really wasn't much to do and we hated the weather! There was quite a lot of hanging around at the bus office waiting for the bus to arrive, which late and it was v difficult to find any food that we could buy quickly to take away so everyone ended up buying baguettes and dairylee cheese again for lunch! I managed to download an SLR tutorial all for my phone, so that I could start learning to use the big camera properly and using the long bus journeys efficiently (and to break up all the blogging!)