HUÉ - Vietnam

The views from Da Nang to Hué on the train is supposed to be really spectacular, which was why we took the day train (3 hour journey). However, as we made our journey up north of Vietnam, it got colder, wetter and the skies were gloomier. Even though we sat at the train's lunch cart, next to the window, the sight outside looked too depressing to 'enjoy'. Pretty, no doubt, though I kept myself occupied by doodling on Chris' notebook - whoops!

And that, was practically how it was in Hué - wet, muddy, chilly!

We stayed at Waterland Hotel; our room was nothing like what they promoted in their website or in Agoda. We were given a room at the top floor, and weird enough, next to ours is an empty room with an altar. Since we were only there for two nights, it did not matter much as our room was decent. 

Hué is my least favourite destination in Vietnam during this trip. The bad weather is one of the reasons. Food is not bad either, yet I missed Hoi An! Bia Hoi is slightly expensive here, 5,000VND/glass (approximately 25cents)

 

Took the Emperors' Tombs tour from our hotel on the morning itself. Luckily they managed to slot us into one of the groups. The tombs are magnificent, with Emperor Minh Mang's outdoing the other two. Nevertheless, each tomb is significant in its own way.

Our tour started on a boat, which I think I might enjoy it more if the weather was sunny instead of wet and chilly. It drizzled the whole day. The guide took us to someone's ancestral house that looks nothing extraordinary to me (maybe because I am Chinese), I spent more time taking photos of toads! We had to give the house's caretaker 10,000VND each - blah! What a good way for them to make money.

 

 

My slipper broke while stomping in the mud from our boat to the house. Bugger! It was so hard to trample in mud with my flops that I just took them off and walked barefooted. It's only mud anyway.

After that, we headed to Thien Mu Pagoda - something I looked forward to, if only it wasn't raining/drizzling. Place was filled with tourists too.

 

 

I know, I look really fashionable!! I knew it will be cold in north of Vietnam, but never expected it to be constantly wet. In fact, I only brought a jacket with me but no warm-enough pants. On and off, I would cuss aloud "Damn sejuk gila babi!!" just because I can, and no one understands me anyway! haha!

Lunch on the boat was OVER-PRICED!!! Hey, first off, I am Asian and from a 'neighbouring' country, so I roughly know how much it costs for them to get fresh produce from the markets. Secondly, we have been eating at street food stalls throughout our trip and am aware of the standard price (for tourists, even though I'm Asian! blah!) I know, I know ... help their economy, yes, I will, if they put in more effort at preparing our food. Food was not bad on the boat, much better than Ha Long Bay's in fact. But I wouldn't say it's cooked Vietnamese-style. Also, we felt cheated by the menu (not just both of us, but a few other tourists on our boat too)

Photo from Chris

After lunch, we got off the boat and continued our journey by bus. Before that, we made our first tomb stop at Emperor Khai Dinh Minh Mang's. One thing I do not like about following a tour group, it's hard for me to get my 'alone time'. Whenever I visit historical places, I like to imagine how it was back then, picturing figures carrying on with their daily activities - just like looking into someone's memory in the pensive!

Visits to the tombs require a guide though as there is no information available around the grounds. Unless you did plenty of reading about the historical days of the Emperors, you'd be pretty lost around the tombs. Huge is an understatement, these tombs are MASSIVE! Enough land to conduct seasonal hunts, one can even kayak around the lake(s).

According to our guide, these gates were shut after the emperor's body passed
through during his funeral, and were never opened since.

We were also told that when an emperor passes away, only three people knew of his burial spot - safety measures from the thieves as the emperors were buried with all their treasure/gold! And one can not locate any of the three because they will be buried alive with the emperor. One of them, is the embalmer.

Photo from Chris

Next was Emperor Minh Mang Khai Dinh's tomb. Some stayed back in the bus because they read that Ming Manh's was not all that fascinating. Oh, how deceived they were. Minh Mang Khai Dinh's tomb may look smaller than the rest from the outside, but inside ... let's just say I had my eyes fixed on the ceiling and walls. It took him 11 years to finish the tomb he wanted, extremely detailed with his wall art. Colored glass and ceramic chips were used to form mosaics with an oriental touch. The ceiling was hand-painted with dragons and clouds.

 

WHAO! Snap! I just found out that our tour guide mixed up the two tombs. The first was Minh Mang's, and this impressive one belongs to Khai Dinh. Haha! Geezz.. I feel bad for those who stayed back in the bus. This tomb is really beautiful!

Emperor Khai Dinh's body is the only one they managed to locate.
Underneath this life-sized gold statue of his is his body and treasures

 

By the time we reached the third tomb, belonging to Emperor Tu Doc, I was starting to get restless and did not take any photos. The constant drizzle did not help either, and the herd of tourists piling in made me feel so 'blah!' - after visiting Khai Dinh's tomb, that emperor's set the standards up in terms of impressiveness.

Before heading back to the city, the tour ended with a trip to a conical hat and incense-making village. Yea, right... it was more like commercial stalls by the side of the street, few minutes walk from Tu Doc's tomb (which we ridiculously went on the tour bus that drove us there), selling souvenirs at an exorbitant price, with two ladies demonstrating how incense sticks and conical hats are being made.

Upon reaching the city, Chris got grumpy hungry so we went scouting for food. Unlike the other places, there was not a food stall in sight on the streets in the backpackers' area. One has to cross the bridge to the other side of the river for markets and such (which we did the following day). While walking around looking for food, a girl from this bar called 'Brown Eyes' was passing out flyers. In conjunction with New Years Eve, the bar had a "Buy-1-free-1" promotion from 5-9pm, and first 50 customers get a free t-shirt. So, yup, we went for drinks after food, on the way back to our hotel. And we went back after for the countdown!

MJ Wall Art

With our new friend from Japan, we were on the same tour that day. Cool guy!

Food hunt the following day!! Visited the wet market, literally WET and muddy. The ladies at the food stalls outside the market were being too pushy, tugging and pushing me towards her stall. Gave us some food that was not what we ordered - only found out later as we were scouting for non-tourist food areas in the market. We found one, sat down and were treated like royalty!! Woo-hoo. The lady was SO NICE!! She took time to explain to us all the food we tried, even introduced to us local specialities and we paid a decent price for all the food we ate. Really cheap, in fact! Sorry, folks! I don't like pushy people. I can make up my own mind.

   

Coffee in Vietnam is Good. They serve you in shot glasses. It will be perfect if they did not add so much condensed milk into the cup. It is super sweet after stirring it. Yuckkk!

As we were heading back to the hotel, Chris got hungry, again, and we stopped for noodles. The bowl of noodles were tasty at first, until I had too many bites of pork fat!! I thought there was some meat in my bowl of noodles but it was pure fat. And in that cold weather, the fat turned into gelatin after a few minutes which makes if even more disgusting. I felt like barfing right after that because of the after-taste of lipids in my mouth.

 

I guess there are hits-and-misses when it comes to eating on the side of the streets. I would say 90% of our gastronomical experiences were good. However, in Hue, I only enjoyed our meal in the marketplace and Banh Bo Hue the first night we arrived. Pho at the restaurant is not as good as what we tasted on the streets.

Cab driver took us on a longer route to the train station in the late afternoon. There is actually a one-street way but he refused to use that road - communication barrier. We took the night train to Hanoi from Hué, and managed to secure a soft-sleeper. It was actually pretty comfy, and we had awesome roomies from California whom we hung out with in Hanoi too!

I travelled Hué from the 30th Dec 2011 to 1st Jan 2012.