Our train from Hanoi to Hue left at 7.35pm on the dot on Sunday night. We were at the train station for 6pm and boarded the train at 6.30 pm so we were the first people in our cabin. A porter grabbed our bags before we had the chance to say no and carried them the significant distance from the waiting room to the carriage. The site of him with our two huge bags on top of his head was pretty funny. We tipped him 20,000 dong (about 65p) but this didn't go down well with his colleague who had boarded the train and proceeded to punch the porter at the end of the carriage when he thought they were out of site. We aren't sure what that was all about and whether the porter had encroached onto his mates turf!!!
We were pleased with the cabin we had booked which was six hard sleeper beds which were a lot more comfortable than we had imagined. We settled down and four others joined us in the cabin, two Vietnamese men and a Spanish couple who were on the top
bunks. We were on the bottom bunks which were the cheapest although we preferred them as we had a table and some power points. Our train pulled out of the station and we settled down for what turned out to be a very comfortable night and one of our most pleasant long journeys of our trip so far. We woke up at about 8am ready to be in Hue for 9am but when we pulled into a station at 9am all we could see were signs for Dong Hoi. Our Spanish roommate then told us that we were 3 hours late due to a vehicle on the tracks in the middle of the night and we should have been in Dong Hoi at 6am. So we had been stopped for 3 hours whilst we were fast asleep. We weren't too fussed as we would not have been able to check into our hotel until 1pm anyway.
We arrived in Hue at 12pm and jumped in a taxi to our hotel, Canary Boutique Hotel. We were shown to our room and were very impressed and it has to be one of the best rooms we've had in Asia so far. All for a tenner a night! After a quick shower, we walked to a supermarket across the Perfume River and picked up some essentials such as beer and vodka!!! We had a wander around and picked somewhere for tea before heading back to the room. We decided on some western food for tea and found a good looking Italians called Little Italy. We both had pizzas and they were excellent. We then headed back to the hotel where we got offered marijuana three times by men on motorbikes. We aren't sure if they were targeting us for a specific reason or if they target all tourists but we were surprised given the strong punishments for drug use in Asia!!
We slept in a bit on Tuesday then headed for the Imperial City which was the ruling seat of the emperor of Vietnam until the 1940's. The imperial city is located within the citadel and is a half hour walk from our hotel. This doesn't sound too far but the heat here is ridiculous. We walked around the imperial city for a couple of hours but we were both melting in the heat so we made for a restaurant for some late lunch before heading back to the hotel. We had a quiet night on Tuesday night and just grabbed some food before having a few drinks back in the room.
On Wednesday, we decided to go for a walk and see where it took us. We ended up visiting a pagoda about a half hour from our hotel but again the heat was a bit too much for us. We grabbed some lunch and Beth wasn't feeling too great so we came back to the hotel.
Tomorrow we leave Hue for Hoi An. We are travelling by bus and it should be a four hour journey tops. We are planning to stay for a week in Hoi An as it has a beach and I want to get a suit tailored as that's what it's famous for. We've enjoyed our time in Hue but three nights has been enough although we didn't go to see the royal tombs which is one of the main attractions here.