The bus I booked arrived around noon to pick me up to my next destination, Hue. This became my first experience with a sleeper bus even when this was during daytime. I must say this wasnt the best experience. Its a bus with beds instead of seats and they are build for the Asian size of people. Since Im quite tall its not easy to fit in those beds. The ride was only 4 hours and this bus stopped 100 meters from my hostel. Lucky again I guess. I decided to rest, eat and make plans the rest of the day. This hostel was owned by a cute Vietnamese couple with e cute small kids. I wanted to see things pretty far away from Hue city center. The hostel sold tours and I decided to book a tour for the next day. I relax for the rest of the day and in the evening an Asian girl walked into the dorm. She went out again quite fast to return a few hours later. Since we shared the room we started talking and she turned out to be from South Korea. She was super nice and even when her english wasnt that good we had super interesting talks for hours. She did an amazing sunset cruise in the hours she was gone. Shame I didnt went with her! We decided to keep in contact and Im looking forward to visiting her in South Korea or Europe. Late in the evening we went to sleep.
I had to wake up early for the tour I booked but I wished I booked the tour for the next day and spend the day with her. Anyway a motorbile picked me up and we drove to a dragon boat and started cruising. The first stop of the cruise was called the Princess Garden House. To be honest not very impressive for me. A nice little old wooden house surrounded by a garden. I must say the garden was full of interesting plants/fruits who were new to me. We started cruising again after half an hour to a Pagoda. This was a wonderful ancient tower next to the river with an old temple. I really loved the view of the tower. I sat down to enjoy the view and suddenly an Asian girl stands next to me hold me and her friends take a picture, another girl, a friend of her decided to do the same. Quite funny but strange since they never asked a thing. I walked back to the dragon boat and wait for the others. This boat is called dragon boat because it has the shape of a dragon, pretty nice! The next stop was an ancient temple but I decided not to visit that, it didnt seem to be worth the money. We had a big local meal on the the boat and cruised towards the other side of the river where a bus was waiting for us. We changed to the bus and started driving to the things I really wanted to see. The ancient royal tombs. I only knew about one but this tour was going to visit three! The first one was Minh Mang Tomb. This was a really Vietnamese style tomb. Before the buildings are stone statues of guards or solders combined with a horse and an elephant, on both sides of the square. We got some information about the past empires from Vietnam and I started walking thru some beautiful ancient Vietnamese buildings. The views were stunning from gate to gate and at the end was the entrance to the tomb. Sadly enough the tomb was closed and sealed off. I could thru some holes in the gate and saw an overgrown little hill. Still an amazing experience! I walked back to the entrance and sat down to have a drink with local people. We got back on the bus and drove to the next tomb, Khai Dinh Tomb. This was another magical place, a mixture from Vietnamese and French cultures. It looks like a palace in Europe but in a very special was. Stairs to a few platforms and every platform was decorated very beautiful. Once again with a stone army of guards at one of the platforms. This could be a palace in Paris. When I walked all the way up I entered the palace or tomb to stumble onto magical decorated halls. This whole place is a masterpiece of art. Its hard to explain this in words. The views looking down from the palace are stunning. I never expected or planned to visit these two tombs so its a big bonus that I got to see them.
Our next stop was a village where they make the Vietnamese hats. This was interesting to see for 5 minutes but felt more like a sales stop. The bis took us to Tu Duc Tomb. This was the one I planned to visit and I must say the least special one. It does have a big beautiful garden and the whole area and tombs are more spread out which makes it nice but less beautiful then the two other tombs. We only had 40 minutes to spend I did visit quite a lot of buildings but it wasnt enough time to do the whole thing. I would advise to focus on the other two tombs. There was an option to drop me off at the Citadel of Hue but then I had nothing left to do tomorrow so i decided to get back to my hostel. My South Korean friend had already left but there was a new girl from Finland. We started a long conversation and went out for diner together in some local restaurant to end the day and go to bed afterwards.
When I woke up I felt extreme lazy in the morning. Didnt want to do anything and really had to push myself to go out. I went down and booked my bustrip for the following day and new destination. I forced myself to get out and decided to walk to the Citadel like my original plan was. This walk took about 20 minutes and it really was a very hot day. The walk was quite nice crossing a large bridge with great river views. When I entered the Citadel a man working there noticed I wasnt wearing a hat. I lost the one I brought in Angkor Wat in Cambodia. I said I would be fine, Im here already for a long time! He replied with "This is Vietnam.". I should have listened but youll hear about it later on. The Citadel of Hue is very large. I think it was a big palace. Its full of wonderful looking houses and gates who remind me of China, not sure if thats an insult! I wandered around here for 4 hours, getting a bit lost in the process and it was really beautiful. In many places I was completly alone which I enjoyed a lot. Since the heat was almost too hot to handle and I had seen everything I walked back to the hostel, along the way I stumbled onto an open air musem full of old American war machines, quite nice to see. In my room which was now only for me I noticed the sun got to me. Headache and hurting eyes. I did some notebook work the rest of the day and went for an early sleep.
To be continued..!
