From Hanoi I took a sleeper train down to the ancient town of Hue (pronounced hway), boarding at around 7pm and arriving at 8.30am the following morning. The sleeper train was much the same as the one I took in China, except this time I was sharing with westerners. Overall, though, the feel of the train was much more grimy and less modern. Western toilets, though, so I can’t complain. I ate my instant noodles and we had a few beers in the train bar before they kicked us out at 10pm, and I went to bed. I slept pretty well, the rocking of the train was perfect to put me to sleep, although the mattress was fairly hard so I woke up the following morning feeling quite stiff.
We took a taxi from Hue station to the hotel, checked in and then me and my friend Monique headed out to explore the Imperial Citadel. It was very pretty, the citadel walls and buildings felt far more ancient than anything I have seen so far, and a lot of them are really more ruins than buildings, now. It was nice to see an ancient town that hasn’t been so heavily restored.
We wandered around the citadel for few hours before hunger got the better of us, and we headed out to find food. Our map was terrible, though, and we got turned around by the multiple exits to the citadel, so ended up spending over an hour trying to find somewhere to eat. There weren’t many restaurants in that part of town, so we defaulted to using a guide-book recommended place. It looked pretty unappealing walking in, but we got a table on the balcony upstairs and the food was spectacular. I got crispy chicken noodles and spring rolls, and finally found some of the mesh-style coated Vietnamese spring rolls that are absolutely amazing. The meal was very cheap, too. After that we walked back to the hotel and had a little down time before dinner. We went for dinner in the back-packer part of town which is far more happening, with lots of bars and restaurants, but during dinner I started to feel a little spaced out and developed a fever, so afterwards I went straight home and to bed.
The following morning I was still not feeling great, but we had a tour to see the King’s Tomb (the tomb of Tu Duc), and take a cruise down the Perfume river, so I dragged myself out of bed. On the way to the tomb we stopped at the local food market, where Vietnamese people come every day to buy fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and fish. And when they say fresh, they really mean it – a lot of the fish were still flapping. Then we checked out an agricultural museum where an adorable lady demonstrated the old fashioned methods for harvesting and processing rice. She put a lot of energy into her performance!
From there we drove for about 40 minutes to the tomb of Tu Duc, where one of the longer-lived emperors was laid to rest (although his body may or may not actually be there, as the real site of his burial was kept secret to prevent grave-robbing). He designed and commissioned the tomb and the surrounding buildings and gardens during his lifetime, and actually ended up spending a great deal of time there while he was alive as well. Much of the site is now ruined, with crumbling walls covered in foliage. It was quite scenic, although the market stalls selling the standard complement of tourist tat spoiled the ambiance somewhat.
Leaving the kings tomb, we took a boat ride down the perfume river that was utterly pointless. Sat inside a gaudy boat shaped like a dragon, we peered out of the scratched, fingerprint-covered plastic windows, whilst being hassled to buy more tat. We weren’t allowed to go outside of the enclosed part of the boat to enjoy the scenery. Thankfully it was a fairly short boat ride. On the other side of the river we stopped at a Buddhist temple called Thien Mu. It had a rather beautiful pagoda, and statues with beards made from horse hair!
We got back to the hotel mid-afternoon and as I was still feeling feverish I decided to go up to my room and rest. I got in the lift and after about a floor and a half, everything went dark and the lift ground to a halt. There was a powercut. I tried to use the emergency communication button, but it did nothing as the power was out. Thankfully I had my phone on me so I was able to generate a little light, and I waited patiently to he rescued, trying to stay calm and ignore my claustrophobia. After about 5 minutes I heard voices outside and I called back, and about 10 minutes later they managed to pry the doors open and I climbed up out of the lift to the next floor, which I was only a meter or so below. Shaken, and still feeling ill, I went upstairs (stairs being the operative word!) and had a long nap until dinner.
The next morning we left early to drive to Hoi An. I wasn’t sorry to see Hue go, and there’s definitely no Hue I’d go back!
