...My Own Final Fantasy

Hue was actually the first city in Vietnam we arrived in. The first time was a quick quarter-day stop over en route to Hanoi where johan, lando, sean, jessica and me all felt so dirty after the worst bus ride ever that we actually rented a hotel room for the 3 hours between then and our departing bus. the hotel staff understood our purpose and didn't mind renting the room out to the 5 of us. We were all so pleased with the room! it was a massive corner suite with a wrap around balcony with an excellent city view. i think what really separated this hotel from the others is that it actually had a computer in room. this is kind of exciting for me because it was at this point where i was starting to really worry about falling behind on my blogging. anyways, that was the first time. upon leaving Hanoi and Halong Bay, lando and i knew exactly where we were going to stay on arrival in Hue. leaving hanoi was kind of sad because this is where our group finally disbanded. sean and jess were going north to sapa and johan had booked a train to hue whereas we booked the sleep bus, so we knew we'd eventually see him but we were pretty excited anyways to be on our own again. we just about immidiately booked a bike tour of hue. on the itinerary: (excuse my forgetfulness with some of the names)Thien Mu Pagoda, Tu Duc tomb, a hill overlooking the perfume river and The Forbidden City. at the pagoda, they had the car that the monk (burning himself alive) on the cover of rage against the machine album drove to his demonstration. the tomb was pretty nice but i think that the day we did this ranks among the hottest of this vacation so far. it really contended with the day we cycled to siem reap for the hottest. we were absolutely roasting! if we thought the tomb was hot, we really started to burn at the forbidden city. in the older days, only the higher status figures were allowed within these walls. now it's filled with fat white tourists and japanese tour busses. in fact, i was told about this place so often that i was really disappointed by it. i think landon was too. it was nice, but i guess after 3 previous countries of temples and similar shit it just got boring. it kind of hurts to say that because it really is impressive... after this, we called it a day due to overheating. sticking to a budget as landon's funds were getting dangerously low, we spent the rest of the day in the hotel drinking beer, watching TV and updating my blog! i think i wrote my vang vieng and vientianne updates in that room. the next day we visited the hue local market. landon was trying to beat the heat too so she bought a vietnam ball cap and we purchased a few more bottles of sunscreen. otherwise a bit of a wasted trip. it was all same same but different and the walk across the bridge was deadly hot. we eventually got in contact with johan again and met up with him for sushi in the evening. we ended the night by taking pictures by the river and drinking with a few germans in some neat little bar in the alley where our hotel was located. the germans were drunk and crazy.... and friendly as usual. we would see them again in other places.... we all planned a trip to hoi an the next day. what's with places in vietnam that start with "H"? i've only been to places that start with "H"....