Once the bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere (nothing unusual with that), we had a quick ride on the back of scooters into the centre of town. Judging by the frantic traffic, we knew we weren't in Laos anymore Todo and Hue isn't even a big city... A young man haggled us really hard to come and visit his hotel which turned out to be great, cheap and right accross from the best cafe/bar in town.
Hue is an old aristocratic city wich is organised around a fortified citadel of small colonial buildings, lakes and canals. Within the citadel is the "Purple city" which contained all the royal and ceremonial buildings. Unfortunately, the war destroyed most of it and even despite heavy restauration undertakings, it is hard to really grasp the grandiose density of it. The remaining temples and monuments reminded us of the Japanese shrines we visited, sharing a similar kind of serenity and harmony very different to the psychedelic exhuberance of Thai temples.
We also spent some time exploring the rest of the citadel, having coffee overlooking the river "Perfume" and walking around the market which we found to have more diversity than most others we have seen and generally enjoyed the cooler weather.
On one of the days we were there, we went on a tour of the DMZ or the Demilitarised zone which divided North and South Vietnam. Despite the impression of spending most of the time on the bus and the fact that the sites were not as interesting as the stories they possess, it was still good to just be there if only to see that life does go on, the trees have grown back, the no-man's land is now covered in rice fields and people live their lives. The past is still perceivable though. One area we drove through, although covered in forest, couldn't hide the huge craters making the ground undulate like waves. In one town, once a week, on fridays, land mine specialists come and detonate them all day long. The highlight of the tour was to visit a network of tunnels built and lived in by a whole village when the bombing got too bad to live above ground. As we walked through, slightly bent over not to hit our heads, it was extremely disturbing to imagine the kind of desperation that would lead anyone to adopt such living conditions. But life prevails and the 17 children born in the tunnels have all grown up and are still alive now.
Lolo speaks very highly of his numerous trips to Vietnam and is thrilled you are enjoying it so much now. I chuckled when reading about heading straight for Nice since as we know from experience, it has its fair share of hagglers and grouches per square meter.
ReplyDeleteThat said, as I walked around yesterday and climbed to the top of the MAMAC for breathtaking views of the city, I thought how lucky we are to still live here too. What I loved most about the view was not the sea or the vegetation but the yellow, orange, salmon and ochre buildings. And as for the inhabitants, it is finally quite easy for me to simply shrug off and even laugh (inside) at the "attitude."
Before I forget, I want to remind you that when you are in Nice, you might enjoy going to Willy's favorite Lao restaurant appropriately named Ventiane and located on rue de la Buffa just across from Loft, the modern furniture store. Go down rue du Congres, turn right and there you are.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how long you guys have around Hoi An, but you should try and get out to the old temples at My Son. We rode scooters out there I think, which was quite a ride but fun! They have become quite overgrown by the juingle, and a lot were ruined in the war but it is still worth while.
ReplyDeleteAlso, are you heading south? If you want some beach relaxation, you might want to consider going to Mui Ne Beach, which is apparently a lot less touristy than Na Trang, and it has the most amazing sand dunes nearby, which is a really fun ride out to! and the beached along the was are incredibly beautiful and completely deserted. We stayed in a bungalow on the beach called Xnau Uyen for about $10 a night. Their address is 78 nguyen Dinh Chieu st, Ham Tien Ward, Miu Ne.
Thanks for all the tips about Nice and Vietnam. We have actually left Hoi An and were somewhat pathetic tourists since we stayed in town the whole time. It was fun and we were busy with our tailoring. We are actually heading North now. We were going to go South but we can't stand the heat anymore, it's driving us mad. It's a slight pity but we'll just have to come back at a cooler time.
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