Hue, Vietnam

We arrive to Hue (Vietnam former imperial capital) in the morning after about 14-15 hours in a night train. It was all right to sleep on the berth bed with some 2 Vietnamese woman with a kid on the bottom bed and us on the top. 

We got to the hotel which Weronika didn't like, so we had to move, oups, :)

Next hotel was much better but we kept the price of $12 from the previous one.

We have a tourist plan to visit what is to see in this hell hot town, OMG I thing we are going to die here...melting...min 38'C

Citadel & museum

The Citadel and the Imperial City has been constructed from 1804 and lies on the Perfume river, named after abundant amount of flowers growing at the surface.

Unfortunately, the  Citadel has been victim of war bombings from USA and is being slowly renovated by Vietnamese government.


Sadly many buildings were damaged but one could see the old glory of golden decorations for deserted gardens, palaces and halls etc. Impressive overgrown gardens, massive fortifications and lakes.

Inside is holy of the holy: purple forbbiden city for the emperor, with all the servants being eunuchs and its concubines ;) Apparently he could have up to 500 woman and over hundred wife's! 

Anecdote: we did not spot the entry of the citadel 50m from us (f...k blind or what?) and we walked all around its walls under terrible heat, like 3km for nothing...grrrr

Vietnam war tanks, planes and helicopter

We chicky spotted some fancy MIG-21 airplane, UH-1 helicopter, and various tanks. Francois got very excited about that ;) - especially after a few hours visiting the Imperial City within the Citadel.

 

Scooter tour: Pagodas, Royal Tombs, Bunker

We got quite fascinated by an exceptional guide who approached us while looking at old vehicles left after Vietnam war. Actually the guide is a reconverted monk but still practicing in his leisure time. He showed us his pagoda (equivalent to a monaster in buddhism culture) where he spent 11 years studying buddhism.

He was able to tell us key personality features from both of us, as well as some weaknesses we need to pay attention at. He was extremely empathic and could guess our emotions and somehow relate them to our childhood past. We sat together in his pagoda and he read the lines of Weronika's hands and told us very interesting comments without having any knowledge of our lifes. It was a bit scary that he was very good in reading our past experiences and emotions... He wrote a note for each of us with some good hints. 

The most impactful was for Francois: beware of any accidents, especially in the car, motorbike or in the street and also avoid swimming in open water when he is 49 years old. Especially the date of 23 of March before turning 50 is meant to be bad for Francois. Suprisingly our guide monk predicted this date which is one day before Francois' birthday... Very mysterious... As he did not have any hints about Francois' birthday.

The monks singing 7 praying before the meal. It took good 10 minutes for them to thank to Buddha for the food and the good life. We enjoyued thatr we could witness it.

Suprisingly, a lot of Vietnamese people DO wear those hats...

We also went to see royal tombs where some emperors with their families were living. So we visited Tu Duc Tomb, one of the main ones.

Our guide did not recommend us to visit more tombs as he said that they look like the same and each time we have to pay the same 4$ entrance fee.

Later on our guide took us to see some USA bunkers on the river corner on top of the hill, very well positioned. 

We had very intense 36 hours stay in Hue and then moved on to catch an afternoon sleeper bus to Hoi An for planned 4 hours trip.

Coach Hue - Nha Trang 138km, 4 hrs