Hue

We spent Wednesday night on an overnight train in sleeper berths for a 13 hour journey from Hanoi to Hue. The train was pretty grotty although still a great experience. We had a few beers in the dining cart, 10 carts up from ours, which was a carriage with bright flashing lights - much like a blue light disco and then a reasonably early night. The 10 of us spent Thursday having a guided tour through the city on cyclos and visited the Citadel - the Kings palace - which is around 25 hectares. Much of the kingdom was destroyed by the French in one of the many french-vietnam battles but what was left was beautiful. We visited a couple of pagodas in the evening (again by cyclo - organised by a local Vietnamese friend of our tour leader) and the city was full with hundreds of thousands of people, all on bicycles or scooters, all celebrating the May buddist festival where each year the Buddists pray for good luck in the coming year. The people here are so friendly and loved practising their engligh on us - the parents of small children kept stopping us in the street so that we could talk to the little ones and everyone continually said hello to us in english. We have learnt some basic Vietnamese - Hello, Thankyou, Goodbye, Delicious, No problems, How much?, Pretty - is about the extent - it makes for some very entertaining interaction with the locals. Later, Long, our Vietnamese friend took us to the DMZ bar where we played some pool and had a few drinks. Today (Friday) we had an early start to tour the city by scooter. Our 9 scooter drivers (one scooter/driver per person) took us, in single scooter file, around the central and rural city down tiny lanes and roads, out through the paddy fields and villages, to the forbidden city (another of the King's properties), a pagoda of the famous monk who burned himself to death in opposition to the imposition of Catholism in Vietnam, a buddist nunnery where we had lunch and a short afternoon siesta, an incense making stall and to the famous Conical hat maker of Vietnam - Thuy. To see the city on the back of a motorbike was unbelievable - we saw the outback and rural areas of Vietnam that most tourists would never see and got to talk to and interact with the villagers around the towns. Most cool, all of the children that we passed by called out to us in english and put out their hands out for high fives as we drove past. We headed back to the hotel on a boat down the perfume river which was a relaxing way to finish the day.