Free breakfast
It’s always been said, that the most important meal of the day, is breakfast. I live and die by this rule. It’s even more important to eat breakfast, when it’s free. So you bet I’ll be there! I had some lovely scrambled eggs, they went down a treat. Today, we’re taking a tour of some of Hue’s temples and tombs. This is namely because we couldn’t find much else to do in Hue. There are a number of other bits and bobs to do in Hue, here’s a list of them. It’s worth picking up a tour in Hue, not online though. We got ours through the hostess, and it was proper cheap compared to website prices.
The tour bus picked us up around 9am and took us to our first destination, the Citadel. The Citadel was a sort of fortress, near the centre of Hue. It reminded me a little of the Forbidden City in Beijing. Large walls towered on the outside, and some temples or buildings inside. Whilst on the bus, Mat and I got talking to a Chinese girl called Qian. She was travelling in Vietnam by herself, so she struck up conversation with us. Qian seemed very pleasant and friendly, so we obliged and had a good chat.
Translating for the masses
The tour of the temples was pretty confusing from the get-go to be honest. Before we even got to the Citadel, we lost our tour guide several times. There was a mixture of Vietnamese tourists, and Western tourists, which tended to stick with their own crowd. We eventually got to the Citadel with everyone in our party. Despite the guide speaking English, I found myself having to translate for the other tourists. I could understand the fellow without a problem, but he did pronounce things a little skew-whiff. This is most likely why the others didn’t understand. Without being rude, it was very funny, and we all had a good laugh. I tried as hard as I could to be respectful to the tour guide though.
Due to the language difficulty and the laughing, we didn’t learn too much. It wasn’t the guide’s fault, it’s just that we got distracted, and I don’t find temples terribly interesting anymore. I’ve already been to several, but it seems that, if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. It seems to be the same story, with a few different characters. I fully understand that they’re special and mean something to the locals/country’s population, but I can’t say I’m overly interested. Check out our visit to the Forbidden City in Beijing.
One after the other
Over the next couple of hours, we visited several tombs and pagodas. Some were pleasant to look at and had very intricate architecture. Most of them were influenced by the Chinese; several temples looked like the ones I’d seen in China. A few of the tombs also had Mandarin symbols/scriptures displayed within them. Part way through the tour, they also threw in a buffet lunch which was okay. There were quite a few people around, so a lot of it went quite quickly. You had to be quick and nimble to get the good food before it diminished.
After the last tomb, we stopped at a small shop that created incense. We got to see how it was made, and a few people had a crack. It seemed more difficult than it looked to get the perfect incense. The tour also included a boat ride down the river, that was perhaps a highlight of the trip. When we got off of the boat, that was the tour over. Everyone said bye to each other and went separate ways. We actually got on really well with some of the other couples. Qian was also going her own way, so we said our goodbyes and left each other. I took her WeChat just for future contact in case we’re in the same area.
Value meal
As we made our way back towards our hostel, we found a place nearby for dinner. At most restaurants, there are usually a ton of lovely meals available. We decided to go for a set menu. This included a starter, such as soup, an appetiser, two mains, a dessert, and a drink! It was a boat load of food. The craziest thing was, it only came to around £6! My only complaint was that it all came out at the same time. Mat went for the same set menu, so we had about 10 plates on our table for 2. It was absolutely crazy, but the food was amazing. I sometimes feel guilty for paying so little for so much.
Half way through, the whole vicinity had a powercut, so we were just sitting in the dark, as well as everywhere outside. They brought us a candle which was nice, until the lights came back on. It was like a ghost town. After dinner, we returned to our hostel. We had a few room mates, a chap from Manchester who we spoke to for a bit. He’s riding from South to North on a motorbike. We also had a Dutch couple who had been working in Australia for several months to a year. All of us were speaking for some time before I went off to call Elva. It’s really interesting to speak to so many people with different backstories.
