14 hours to Hué

We arrived in Hué this morning at around 9am.

We were picked up last night at 6pm by a 14-seater minibus which would take us to the overnight bus. There were already 7 people and their backpacks on board. We then made 2 further stops; the first collected one Vietnamese man and his suitcase, we arrived at the second stop to find 7 people each with rucksack and daypack. You do the maths. Basically only about 2 of the people and their bags would fit on, or so you would think. The guy from the travel agent 'encouraged' us to try and fit everyone on; rucksacks were on knees, people were on people and rather crammed in we made our way to the bus stop.

The bus was waiting and seemingly already full; all 17 of us from the minibus queued up to be told there were only 5 spaces left on the bus…! 5 people got on (not us) and the rest of us started a bit of a heated conversation with the guy from the travel agent. Fortunately another sleeper bus turned up about half an hour later. We got on thinking that 12 of us would have it to ourselves; but as we anticipated it waited for an hour until it filled up. There are some pictures of the sleeper bus in the photographs; believe it or not for a regular sized coach there were about 32 beds on it. Quite a bizarre set-up, the beds were pretty narrow and short (another of those rare occasions where it is a positively good thing to be petite). In the main part of the bus the beds, in bunks, ran down both sides and down the middle aisle, not leaving much room to manoeuvre. At the back of the bus there were 5 beds, top and bottom, all next to each other, a bit like one big bed and with only 2 entry / exit points. Fine if you're in a group of 5 who all know each other, a bit too cosy if you're travelling next to strangers and are slightly on the claustrophobic side. Matt and I managed to get 2 top bunks in the main part of the bus; you have to sleep with any luggage that doesn't go in the hold as there's no storage as such AND they demand that you take your shoes off as soon as you get on (which is actually probably a good thing). There was a toilet that was a little ripe, but fine. The bus was filled with mainly backpackers and about 6 Vietnamese people plus a family, who didn't have bunks and so for some bizarre reason just lay down in the aisles to sleep rendering it impossible to walk anywhere other than on other people's bunks (or other people). 2 hours in, the driver stopped and gave them all mattresses, we guessed they might be family of his. At 4.30am all the lights went on as the bus stopped to let off one guy then again at 7am we stopped about 60km from Hué for a coffee break. Between the driver intermittently flicking the lights on, the not desperately great roads and consistent beeping, I don't think many of us got much sleep; that is apart from those who had acquired several blister packs of valium from somewhere in Hanoi and prior to setting off had taken 4 tablets each.

We arrived in Hué and stepped into a sea of touts waving their cards at us; we had booked a hotel the day before so made our way there.

Between 1802 and 1945 Hué served as the capital. The Song Huong River (also known as the Perfume River) divides the city into north and south. The Citadel, to the north, was the imperial city from the early 1800s. So, in the afternoon we headed out to visit. The weather is really warm and fairly humid so it's a bit of an effort sight-seeing but it was a pleasant afternoon.