Hue

---

 Find Hue on a map

Interesting visit yesterday. We went to Hue to visit the forbidden palace, a budist pagode and a king's mausoleum, all from 18th-19th century.

The best part of the whole tour was that the three of us, Maria, Susana and myself had our own personal driver and also our personal guide which turned out to be quite a nice guy willing to tell us all about Vietnam, its culture and of course the places we were visiting. Driving from Hoi An to Hue takes about 3 hours each way so...in crazy Vietnamesse traffic which is like 6 hours in normal european traffic.


UPDATE 08-Jan-2010


So, what´s in Hue that is worth visiting? Probably a few more things that we managed to see in one day but I think we've managed to see quite a lot.


We started with the Imperial palace, then we went to see a budist pagode and finnaly we took a boat and navigated up the river in order to visit Tu Duc's tomb (one of the Vietnamese kings of the Nguyen dynasty).

Now you may think I got a phd on Vietnamese dynasties and I'm not going to deny that under torture and the influence of some heavy drugs I could have been persuaded to study such a fascinating topic, but not, my knowledge comes from walking in Vietnamese towns, you can´t imagine the amount of streets called Nguyen something... with all the walking we did in Hanoi and Hoi An, that name got tattooed in my brain... and that´s how I remember the name of this dynasty. :-)


This was one of those long day excursions we got up at 6 in the morning and we didn't make it back until 8 pm or so.

The car was waiting for us at 7 am at the hotel...but before starting a long day like that we went for a champions breakfast...omelettes, tea, coffee, LOTS of bread, fresh pinaple and sweets (I remember starting the day with two omelette sandwitches...and I still remember them so imagine how good they were). :-)

We had our own personal guide just for the three of us and a driver, the guide's english was quite good and he turned out to be quite a chatty guy...so we had the oportunity to ask him one million questions he was only to happy to answer. :-)

15-20 minutes after we left Hoi An we got to a place renouned by its marble work and we got offered to stop and see them working...it just turned out to be the typical stop where the owner of the given shop pays a comission to the guide based on what we buy...and despite of a very interesting and tempting 3 TON buda statue we decided to hold ourselves back and not to buy it. Nonetheless it was interesting to see how they worked the marble...

After an hour or two on the road we reached a mountain and according to the guide, that mountain was the border between the North and the South in the Vietnam war so on the way in we climbed the mountain and stopped on the top to take a few pictures although on the way back we came through a new tunnel that goes all the way under the mountain.

The driving in the maddening traffic seem to last forever but eventually we made it to the Imperial palace in Hue.

Hue used to be the capital of Vietnam and the Imperial palace was were the emperor used to rule from and live with his hundreds of wives...then along came the french and although the emperors still had hundreds of wives...they didn´t rule anymore...

One striking thing I've noticed while in vietnam was the alphabet they were using...it was just like ours but with many weird extra characters and it seems they used to use the chinese alphabet until the french came, then the french changed the alphabet for what it is now so currently they use the latin alphabet but with apostrophes all over the place.

Another thing that is worth noting about the imperial palace is that a great portion of it was destroyed by the americans in the Vietnam war, apparently the Vietcong was hidding in it and the americans decided to blast the whole thing out... now several countries are working on the reconstruction.

After the temple it was time for a quick lunch so the guide took us to a local restaurant were the three of us eat for under 1.50 €, yes that's right...not each...the three of us!! and it was quite good...
Once with renewed energies we got back to the van and headed for the budist pagoda.

And then we took a boat in order to visit Tu Duc's mausoleum. They were two people managing the boat, the captain piloting the boat and a girl trying to sell us everything she could think of drinks, clothing, decorative items...you name it...she showed it to us...but let´s just say were weren´t a very interested crowed...so after all the selling stopped we managed to relax and enjoy the rest of the boat trip.

Tu Duc´s Mausoleum was quite impressive and not only he used it as a mausoleum, he also used it as a summer residence.

We actually took hundreds and hundreds of pictures that day but it´s hard to pic just a handfull of them. I posted the ones I thought were the most representive.

On the way back you used the tunnel, you can see the entrance to the tunnel below...

And we had the feeling the driving went forever and ever...

Hoi An - The land of tailors and dress makers

--

Find Hoi An on a map

Anything your brain is capable to imagine when it comes to clothing, you can make it come true here in Hoi An for a very reasonable price. Ask Maria! I've never saw someone so happy among piles and piles of fabric. :-)

Bespoke trousers for $15, silk dress for $20 and so on... even flipflops made of bamboo for $1 !!!
People are buying like crazy (mind you, I'm no exception!) and every shop is either a restaurant or a tailor shop so you're spoiled by choice!

It's a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes walking through a street and having 10 people calling you to go and see their shops...this morning I was ignoring them all as I usually do but I could feel one of the girls started running after me and I thought...God! is she pushy or what? so I sped up...when finally (after 2 minutes of heavy running on her part) she managed to catch up with me I realised she was the lady from the travel agency I had booked an excursion with for the following day, she saw me and wanted to confirm the hotel where I was...I felt really guilty...specially after noticing her heavy breathing for running after me for so long... oooops!

She certainly earnt her fee with me this morning!


UPDATE 04-Jan-2009

After crazy Hanoi, Hoi An was a nice and quiet village. Quite picturesque and with a very nice beach not far off. The main income comes from tourism, specially from dress/suit making.

It's a mix of styles between chinese and french colonial, so although most of the village buildings follow a french colonial style (and they were probably all built on that period) walking by the streets you always end up finding the odd chinese temple or bridge.

When we were back in Sapa, Sam and Casey told us they had already been in Hoi An so we obviously asked them about it since we were going a few days later and that´s where we learnt that Hoi An is a village where most people is specialised in dress/suit making, specially for foreigners...that's where the big dollars are...

María and Susana took the oportunity to do quite a little bit of shopping while visiting Hoi An...but not like you would do here...in Hoi An you go to a shop you tell them what you want them to make for you and how you want it, you ask about the price, haggle a bit for it, come back in the afternoon to try it out and pick it up the following day in the morning...

Girl´s paradise:

Among all the shopping we also took the oportunity to visit the village and one of the things they recommended us was to buy a ticket to visit all of the touristic attractions in Hoi An... I'm still wondering where they were some of them though, but nonetheless we had our ticket so we went to visit them. First one, the Japanese bridge.

Then it was an old house built by a rich family a few centuries ago.

This was quite an unusual visit...we found the back door to the house instead of the main entrance so we got in but we weren´t sure whether it was someabody´s house or "the house" until out of the blue someone started talking to us and greating us to the museum, made us sit on some ancient chairs (over here they wouldn´t even let you breath around those chairs, they were really old and I was really concious about not breaking mine!) and while I was working out whether my chair would resist my weight or not, our new guide ordered someone to bring us some green tea!! yeah...my first museum where I get served green tea, and while we were sipping from our respective cup of tea, the guide started to tell us the story about the house, the owners, etc...

How is that for a museum visit? I wouldn´t mind to see that style implanted here in Europe. :-) Somehow I don´t see it happening any time soon though...

Anyway, it turns out that they have big flooding every year and they usually get an advance warning (one or two days), so they collect all the furniture and take it to the second floor, when the flooding is gone they take it all back down...and they´ve been doing it like that for centuries...

This is the level of the floodings for 2009.

On our last day in Hoi An we decided to go to the beach so after some traditional haggling, I take it-I don´t take it-this is too expensive-let´s go somewhere else-okay we´ll get them for that new price, etc, etc...Susana rented a motorbike and María and I rented a couple of bikes. This wasn´t Hanoi traffic but still...it was Vietnam traffic...at least in the village, after the village it was quite a nice and pleasant ride.

So after 15-20 minutes on the bike we made it to the beach and it turned out to be a great beach with fantastic restaurants...

Apart from the food on the table, the sunshine etc...pay close attention in the previous picture to the two girls, they were working and as you can see they were wearing long sleaves, hat, a mask in some cases and even sunglasses... and it was *really* hot that day!

We enjoyed the good weather and some beverages with umbrella together with a fantastic lunch, but the sun only stays up until 5-6pm so we had to go back before the sun was down and what some views we had on the way back...

When we got to the  village it was the time schools finished so we took the oportunity to take a few pictures of the school uniforms that I mentioned in a previous post...really worth a picture.

After such a glorious day we decided to have dinner in one of the restaurants by the river so after some choosing we picked one, french colonial building with the ground floor and a first floor with a balcony where we were lucky enough to find seats...

Fantastic views and fantastic food... I think that was the best food we had in Vietnam...and food in Vietnam was very good in general but this place just topped them all.


The following day we had a car picking us up at the hotel at 7 am to drive us to Da Nang airport from where we flu to Ho Chi Ming City and finally to Siem Reap in Cambodia...it was good-bye Vietnam...