Lyd's Adventures: Hue, Vietnam

We arrived back in Hanoi from Sapa at the crack of dawn on our overnight train and headed back to the 3B Hotel. We were heading south on another overnight train that evening, so had decided to pay for a room for the day. Even through we weren't going to actually sleep there overnight, at only 20USD it was well worth it to have a place to crash and sort our stuff for the day. The hotel looked after us so well the whole time we were there. Whenever we headed out on our excursions we would just take the clothes we'd need for the few days away and leave the rest at the hotel. We would leave washing to be done that would be waiting on our return (you can't under-estimate the positive effect that clean clothes has on the psyche when travelling!) and would always be greeted back at the hotel with big smiles, the ubiquitous fresh lemonade, and the offer of breakfast. Just what you wanted after a long night on the train...

That night we headed back to the train station (which we were now pretty familiar with!) for our third overnight train, waking up in Hue the next morning. I really enjoyed travelling on the trains. They were really comfortable with clean linen on the beds. We had booked bottom bunks for each trip as there was no way I could have made it up the top with my injured knee. There are no ladders, you just use the small metal step you can see to the left of Will below. The other advantage of the bottom bunks is having use of the small table between the bunks. Will and I would usually play cards for a couple of hours before turning in for the night and trying to get some sleep.

Hue is situated approximately half-way down Vietnam, on the banks of the perfume river. It was Vietnam's capital from 1802 till 1945, and the imperial city was what we were there to see. The banks of the river were lined with colourful wooden tourist boats, with desperate vendors wanting to take us across the river for 1 or 2 USD. Despite it being a fairly drab grey kind of day, Will and I decided a walk would do us good instead.

We walked past some flower stalls selling super cheap orchids that I would have loved to have brought home if I was able...

You enter the imperial city through one of several imposing city gates. We weren't really following a map, we just walked along until we found one of them.

The imperial city complex was huge! We spent about 4 hours wandering around before we got a bit fatigued, and we feel like we could have spent at least that much time again and still not seen everything.

They loved their topiary in this complex! All sorts of bushes and hedges had been trimmed into animal shapes...

For a boy who likes his dragons, Will thought this was pretty cool!

Parts of the temple complex were incredibly ornate. Some of it has obviously had a lot of time and money spent on restoration, and some of it was still a work in progress.