Hue (pronounced ‘hway’) is an ancient capital city of Vietnam, famous for its architecturally marvellous Citadel and also for its unfortunate position during the American war – the city was almost completely destroyed during the Tet Offensive by US troops attempting to free the city from the occupying Viet Cong.
Our journey here was pretty eventful in itself… instead of slumming it in a bus we surrendered our enormous backpacks to an excitable lady who managed to load all of them, and herself, onto a tiny scooter and zoom off into the distance. Then we mounted our own valiant steed, Samantha the motorbike, and (after attracting the attention of a suitable number of over-helpful Vietnamese guys to help us get the thing started) we were off! Fortunately for our health Liv was driving, so I could sit back, take photos, and scream for help when necessary. The ride there was completely beautiful, we were really lucky with the weather and we sped down the highway under blue skies in shorts and singlets. Even next to main roads in Vietnam, the rice fields are abundant, spreading out from either side of the road like a perfectly green, wet, gluten-free blanket.
We had a difficult run-in with some official-looking people who spoke no English, and through a series of mimes and some pointing we managed to establish that we weren’t allowed to ride through a tunnel because the danger of accidents was too high, that instead we could either load our bikes onto a truck for transit or we would have to go round the long way to get to Hue. Try acting that out in charades! Eventually it was all sorted though, and we skipped the tunnel and rode over a mountain pass that Top Gear had previously covered, and you could see why: in Liv’s words it is Vietnam’s Amalfi Coast. The water is Gatorade blue, the beaches are as white as my tan lines, it is so stunning we felt like we were in a Bond movie.
For our lunch break we had a picnic at Elephant Springs, a gorgeous little lagoon surrounded by boulders shaped like elephants – we swam through the freezing water and slid down a waterfall before heading onwards. Everything was going swimmingly until, 14km outside of Hue, disaster struck and our bike pooped itself. The whole way it had been making very confusing popping noises and emitting a rather concerning burny smell, but we hadn’t really taken any notice of it… and now we were stranded on the side of Highway 1 with the sun going down. We debated hitchhiking (and were offered a ride into town by two dudes in a van – not creepy at all I’m sure) but in the end managed to flag down a rare taxi and got ourselves into the city, leaving Samantha abandoned by the road. Inevitably this ended in a huge fight with the motorbike dude, who also spoke no English, but we got our bags back and escaped unscathed so ALL GOOD.
Hue itself doesn’t have a huge amount going for it. For one thing the weather is miserable at the moment, and after weeks of heat and sunshine Liv and I were decidedly grumpier in the rain and the cold. We only had one full day here and spent it exploring the Citadel, the seat of the old capital of Vietnam before French occupation. It was pretty impressive, huge and sprawling with lots of gilded golden buildings and spacious gardens – even horses! – but the rest of the town didn’t have a huge amount to see. We were told that the nightlife was non-existent since almost everything closes at 11pm but teamed up with some new Dutch and British buddies we proved that theory wrong and partied probably too hard both nights we were here. We peer pressured our new friends into the ‘time bomb’ challenge – shotgun a beer and then do a shot of any liquor and a jagerbomb in less than a minute – and took over the only club open in town, where locals and backpackers alike were dancing really embarrassingly to the Grease soundtrack and 50 Cent.
Even though I didn’t love Hue as much as I loved Hoi An, it was fun to hang out with other travellers and meet new people. I have to say that waking up to an eyeful of some dude’s hairy ass on the bunk next to me was probably a bit much, and way too many people had sex in our dorm, but once again us Senior Adventurers took it in our stride and lived to tell the tale!
Off to Phong Nha-Ke Bang national park to do some caving… hopefully it’s not too freezing but I hear swimming through an underground lake is no hot tub.
Tequila and turtles,
PT
Driver Liv
The view from the road
Thelma & Louise
inneedofdirections 