After a 12 hour night bus from Ninh Binh, incorporating a flat tyre and a very bumpy road, we eventually arrived at Hue. As usual we were dropped off quite strategically at one of the hotels where the staff consequently started taking our luggage off the bus so that we would stay at their hotel. Deciding not to take this room we walked on and settled for a nice little hotel close to the centre - you can't beat these $8 rooms with air con, clean beds, tv, fridge,window and everything else you could possibly want!
So as not to waste any time, we decided to go and view the main attraction of the city on our first day - the Citadel. After a long walk in the heat we eventually came to the wall that led to the Citadel, which led to the citadel within this citadel...the ancient walled city had a beautifully decorated, grand entrance - one where we could really imagine how the emperor had once lived - sitting on his grand throne watching down as soldiers marched and elephants (!) stood. We spent most of the day walking around this ancient city with its many temples and buildings, although unfortunately many of the buildings had been damaged or totally destroyed during the wars, and although they were being renovated or re-built, it was sometimes hard to imagine how beautiful this place had once been. The place was pretty huge and we walked around for most of the day, before embarking upon an early night due to a baaad nights sleep on the nightbus the night before...
The following day we walked to quite an impressive pagoda which (we thought) would be walking distance from our hotel...after quite a walk (with cyclo drivers cycling past and shouting 'pagoda very far!')we finally arrived at the pagoda just as a bus full of monks in their beautiful orange robes were leaving, pretty impressive. We walked up through the grand entrance which housed some very interesting looking statues (some quite scary!) and on to the main building. The temple was very special with a huge golden laughing buddha out the front, and several alters inside the building. Outside sat two little boy monks who came in and sounded the bell whenever somebody came in to pray, unfortunately several tour buses came in just as we were there and took multiple photos of the two boys which I didn't feel was quite right in such a place. We were really glad we hadn't followed a tour as it gave us time to take in the pagoda and surrounding buildings in our own time, which took on quite mystical qualities as the rain started (and indeed caught up with us from Ninh Binh!)
Being in Hue was a good opportunity to take in bit of history in the form of the 'Demilitarized zone'(DMZ), an area of Vietnam were some of the bloodiest battles took place during the Vietnam/American war. We organised a tour through our hotel and at 6am the following morning we were picked up by a motorbikedriver who brought us to our DMZ Tour bus around the corner (as we came down the stairs in the morning, 3 of the hotel workers slept on a mattress infront of reception and awoke slightly startled to see us at such an early hour!).
The French and American wars in Vietnam played a big part in people's lives both in Vietnam and throughout the World and so it was quite interesting to see this much televised and publisised area, as well as this I felt it was important to take in some of the history of the country we were travelling through as it leads to a greater understanding of the people and what they have been through.
Although the tour was largely sitting on the bus, we were taken to see the 'Rockpile'where the Americans had one of their main bases/lookout place, the Khe San airstrip where one of the bloodiest battles took place, the infamous 'Ho Chi Minh Trail'(or part of it anyway as the trail comprised of many different routes), and the Vinh Moc tunnels - an intrigueing set of tunnels in the ground where hundreds of people lived for around 5 years in hiding.
That evening the dreaded rain storm caught up with us once again and so we decided to move on to Hoi An the following morning..
