Hue

Hue

Hue was the capital of Vietnam, the feudal sovereignty, in 1744 when the Nguyen lords controlled all of southern Vietnam from the city. The city was severely damaged in the 1968 Tet offensive during the American war, when house-to-house fighting lasted for weeks.
Hue is divided between the older fortified Citadel, containing almost everything interesting, and the new, smaller sprawl that has developed across the river. This is where we were staying.

At the first hotel our bus stopped we had a look at and it looked very nice so we stayed there. Everything in Hue is within walking distance so we took a stroll to the Citadel after some lovely food and coffee. I was again VERY UNCOMFORTABLE due to the heat and I wasn't feeling very well and I was nearly going to go back to the hotel and leave Lisa to it, when we decided to jump in one of the many Cyclo tour drivers’ cyclos. (a guy with some seats attached to the front of his bike)
He was waffling and curb crawling beside us for ages until finally we gave in and took him up on his offer of a tour around the citadel. It turned out he was a very nice man, who was full of waffle about the citadel itself, how his father was killed during the war and how he hates violence etc.

He brought us up on top of a part of the citadel wall (which stretches for over 10km around the city and is about 5 meters thick) to a gun bunker thingy where the US troops would have kept lookout over the gates. Then we cycled to a few different places like temples and old buildings etc. AFterwards, he also read our palms. lol. He said I was very lucky because I have a star on my palm and that my dead relatives are always looking out for me and taking care of me. he he After reading Lisa’s he said she would have two children and they would suffer… lol how nice of him.

We finished up the tour and went on our merry way back to the hotel. Day two was spend lazing about nursing sunburn and drinking beers until we had to get the dreaded night bus to Hanoi … a gruelling 12 hours of hell awaited us.

Big Tall Jim