We got to hue at 830 in the morning after "sleeping" in a really really gross train. After dropping off our laundry (<$1), we went to breakfast and then a food market which was cool since our guide finally told us what all the things we'd been wondering about actually were. We went to the citadel next. The citadel was where the royal court lived when Hue was the capitol of vietnam and we learned about kings, eunichs, and concubines mostly. It was a lot larger than expected. We had awhile to rest and instead of going back out into the heat we ended up watching a rat travel across the roofs of makeshift shops below- it was pretty entertaining. For dinner we went to the royal banquet restaurant where eneveryone dresses up as someone in the court, it was eerily similar to medieval times. Afterwards we started my birthday celebration, a little too enthusiastically i realized today.
Today was the longest day we've had so far which is good since it was my birthday! Today is also buddhas birthday and ho chi minhs so i pretty much could not have picked a better place to spend it. We took a motorcycle tour of the outside of hue and it was easily one of the coolest things ive ever done. we visited a fortune teller, a temple with full buddha bday bash in swing, the perfume river, an inscense shop, an elephant/tiger battling arena, another temple, and a conical hat maker. I was pretty sick today and our guide took me to the pagoda where we were eating lunch later and the nuns took care of me- it was one of the strangest and best experiences ive had- it almost made it worth being sick. they rubbed some kind of oil on the temples and face and gave me a semi painful massage and it was all just really bizzare. Riding on a motorbike all day was just amazing and a huge relief from the heat. Right now we're leaving for dinner at a restaurant run by a deaf mutte- should be interesting.
