The extended night bus
During the night bus to Hue, we stopped several times for toilet breaks. I was able to get a decent amount of sleep in to be honest, which I was pleased with. I’d not looked at the different things to do in Hue, but luckily Mat had thought ahead. The most obvious thing to visit was the abandoned water park. Apparently it was being built for ages, but they suddenly stopped construction and left it mostly complete.
As for our bus journey, we stopped somewhere and pretty much everyone got off…like everyone. This was over 12 hours into the 12-hour journey. I pulled out Google Maps and discovered that we were in Hoi An, another popular destination. In fact, this is the one we decided against in favour of Hue. Neither of us were sure what we were waiting for. I was beginning to think we’d been forgotten about on this bus. After over an hour of waiting, the bus finally got moving again. Panic over. It was still another hour or so until we got to Hue. By this time, it was high noon (around 12pm).
Arriving in Hue
Once we were off the bus, we made a beeline for our hostel. The hostess there was super generous and helpful. Ibiza Hostel was the name of the place we stayed. If you want to check it out, click here. We also got free breakfast included, there was a decent selection including omelette, sweet pancakes, any kind of eggs, and more! Anyway, once we checked in, chilled in the room, taking turns for a shower. We had to cleanse ourselves of the night bus.
The hostess advised us about a small place next door that did food. Since we didn’t want to walk for ages, we decided to head there. It was basically someone’s garden, but the chicken, veg, and noodles was very nice. The mango smoothie went down a treat too! We were going to hire Grab bikes to take us to the abandoned water park. The hostess told us that it’s quite desolate at the park, and it’d be very difficult to get transport back. For a reasonable price, she sorted a private driver out for us (probably family or friend). She said they’d take us, wait for us, and bring us back.
A dispute with the park guardian
The abandoned water park is around 10km from Hue, so it took around 20 minutes to get there. Our driver parked up, and left us to it. We had read that there was an unofficial security guard who charged money to let you in. Most of the time, you only want to be paying 10’000 Dong, otherwise you’re getting ripped off. When we spoke to him, he took us to the side of the entrance into the trees slightly to discuss payment. It was the shadiest thing I’d ever seen haha.
He was trying to charge us 20’000 Dong, but we tried to talk him down. As much as we tried, he wasn’t having it, and he started raising his voice. A few other people joined the fray, trying to discuss. Suddenly, he went mental at a couple of American girls. Mat and I slyly backed away, and walked up the path, ignoring payment at all. We almost got out of sight when we heard the fellow come up on his scooter. This time, when it was just us 3, he quickly accepted 10’000 Dong, and returned to the entrance. Time to explore!
Exploring the park
As a whole, the water park wasn’t much to look at, considering it cost around 30 million dollars to build. Our first landmark we came across was some sort of seating area, a bit like when people watch dolphins at sea world. It was, of course, all trashed and decrepit. There was a spooky atmosphere to the indoor areas which were pitch black. Similar to a horror game where something’s hiding in a dark, abandoned lavatory. We continued, passing only a few people.
The next attraction was a few swimming pools and water slides. These looked half decent to be honest, but they just played host to loads of fish now. We walked around the pools, and over some little bridges, before ascended to the water slides. These were peppered with graffiti and stickers. After having our fill here, we marched on, into the thicket. What we stumbled upon next was the park’s main attraction, a huge dragon in the middle of the lake.
Dangerous dragon
We entered the dragon, and explored the insides. It seemed like an aquarium would have been installed here originally. We ascended to the first floor, which was a bit of a viewing area. We’d seen that you could get to the top to properly view the surroundings. However, due to the darkness of the inside, and the labyrinth of stairs and corners, it took us a while. You almost have to go outside to go back up some more stairs. Eventually, we found the correct route, and climbed to greatness.
We were in the mouth of the dragon, and were able to see all around us. It was pretty cool to be honest, plenty of graffiti here. Not to mention getting a few cool snaps too. It was slightly dangerous, there was a lot of broken glass everywhere. The atmosphere was very relaxing, it was very quiet and calm. Except for the occasional cattle that groaned. That was probably the creepiest thing about this whole place. Eventually, we’d had enough, so we made our way back to the entrance. The paths confused us a little, as there were dead ends, but we got there in the end. Thankfully, our driver was still there, and ready to take us back. We departed from the abandoned water park, just like everyone else.
Do it like the locals
We got dropped off at our hostel and chilled for a while. Later on this evening, we were meeting someone from couchsurfing. This is a website/app that enables you to meet up with people from the city you’re visiting. Sometimes they’ll even host you and let you stop over. He said he’d be able to show us around Hue and take us for some food. We managed to find the meeting point, and I looked out for a guy. Turns out it was a girl we were meeting, and she was waving at us from across the road. I was shocked as I was sure it was a guy we were meeting. Anyway, Dao turned out to be a lovely local English teacher.
The three of us walked, talked, and laughed through Hue, until we reached a little house where we ate outside. The ‘courses’ were small, but plentiful. We had some wraps, rice paper to fill with stir fry, quail eggs, and a Vietnamese pizza (very thin). All in all, it was a nice little meal and it was pleasant to meet the family who cooked. After this, we returned to the meeting place. On the way, we stopped off for a cold, sweet soup which had ice, jelly, and pork in it. Mat and I were confused about this, but it was nice all the same.
We separated from Dao near where we met up, she had parked her bike there. She wants to be a tour guide in the future, so I wished her all the best for the future. It was a great few hours that we spent with her, nice to experience some local culture. We walked back to the hostel and turned in for the night.
