Hue

Here is the long awaited post on Hue--I will do the beautiful drive from Hue to Hoi An tmw and couple that with a post on Hoi An. When I have time, I will launch into a discussion of what I've been reading.

I will reiterate my desire to handsomely reward someone who can create a cellphone mute button or mute button for people on skype/public telephones who speak too loudly. It's one of my biggest pet peeves. That and the motorbike/taxi/rikshaw drivers who wave at you eagerly and invite you to take a ride, and if you ignore them, continue to bug you. What part of "no, not interested" do they not understand? They can speak english well enough to describe the sites and locations in their city, so they clearly understand the word "no"--they just choose not to.

Woke up in the pre-dawn hour of 4am to take a 430am taxi to Hanoi's airport. I discovered that the only time Hanoi is truly quiet is at that hour--only took about 30 minutes to drive the 33kms out to the airfield (compared to an hour coming in).

Vietnam Airlines is very excited to join Skyteam (the air alliance led by Delta and Air France)--how excited? They haven't officially joined yet--they will in July 2010--but they already have an aircraft painted in a full skyteam livery, which I saw as my A320 powered out of the airport (also saw a pair of rusting Russian aircraft that the airline had long since retired) for takeoff bound for Hue, the imperial capital of Vietnam, and site of a big battle during the Vietnam War.

Bit of a cloudy ride, but flew about 15 miles off shore, and the coast was visible the entire way.

As we approached, the coastal mountains created some turbulence that led to a bit of a bumpy ride. Flew over the ricefields with the mountains to our left and straight ahead, and touched down at the Hue Airport, which is located on a slight incline, and was originally built by the U.S. during the Vietnam War.

I already made hostel reservations in Hue, at the sister hostel of the place I stayed in Hanoi. The place in Hue proved to be much better. Whereas in Hanoi, most of the western staff created an atmosphere of get drunk or go home--one of them outright questioned me why I wasn't drinking, and one told me that his job was to get people "pissed"--australian slang for trashed, the Vietnamese staff couldn't have been nicer and more helpful. In Hue, there was only one westerner--the manager, who was a nice enough guy--and the rest were Vietnamese--all as nice and helpful as their Hanoi counterparts. The Hue hostel in general was a little bit more relaxed--drink if you want to, but there's zero pressure. Of course, they did provide free beer between 5 and 6 for hostel guests (not swill either--bottled local stuff that tasted heavenly after the hot afternoon sun).

Nearly lost it at the Hue airport--I tried to take the airport bus instead of a taxi, but the bus literally sat there and wasn't moving for a good 20 minutes--and both planes had already left (Hue's a small airport). After being frustrated for sitting in the non-air conditioned bus, I just said screw it and took a cab in.

Dumped off my stuff at the hostel, and then proceeded to wander around. The Perfume River (yes that's its actual name--not a tourist slogan) flows right through the center of town, and like any decent city with a long riverfront, Hue has created a long green area alongside it and filled it with statues and benches--forming a natural meeting point for residents of the city (and indeed it does--what do Vietnamese in Hue do on a nice friday or a saturday night? They take their girlfriend/wife/children to the river and enjoy the evening). Hue, by the way, was in the middle of a two week long arts and music festival, so all sorts of displays and temporary arenas were constructed along the river.

Looking upriver, hills and mountains come into view, all covered with green trees.
Crossed the nearest bridge and walked to the walled citadel--a massive enclosure that was once Hue proper, and contains the Vietnamese Forbidden City--the city has grown up around it, but the brick walls are well-preserved, as are some of the original buildings sitting on lush tree-lined streets.

It was in the Citadel that I did something that I shouldn't have done--it only cost me 5 bucks, but I should have trusted my gut and high-tailed it when I got the chance--a guy on his motorbike with his family pulls up and tells me he is an english teacher and that he would like to show me around for free--I don't have to pay (warning sign right there--nothing in SE Asia is free, unless you include sweat). Since the guy was with his family, I let my guard down a bit, but I knew I should have high-tailed it out of there when he said he would be back in 15 minutes.

I kept walking around, hoping he would forget/see that I wasn't there and head elsewhere. But nope, he was persistent and managed to find me--that's when I should have said thanks but no thanks, but you get guilt-tripped because they sound so sincere and nice. The bottom line: you want people to leave you alone, you have to be what westerners would consider rude, but it is perfectly acceptable by SE Asia standards.

Guy finds me and he drives me around the old city--which was quite nice--the place is beautiful--lots of canals, trees, and gardens, and Hue natives have built their houses around them.

Go the guys house, and he tells me all about his relatives, and how it was his lucky day to meet me, and maybe I would show him around in the U.S. if he came to the U.S. He keeps insisting to take me on all these day trips and the like, and I keep politely declining. Finally get him to take me to Thien Mu--one of the most famous pagodas in Vietnam--and is gorgeous. Beautiful setting, but even more beautiful is the view upriver of the surrounding mountains and the local boats heading to and fro. I wish I could go more into depth, but the pictures speak for themselves--and I've taken a lot of pictures.

I purposely get the guy to drop me off a couple of blocks from my hostel, just in case. He tells me I don't have to pay, but I offer to give him some money for gas--I get out some money--offer him 30,000, but he sees my bills, and promptly grabs a 100,000 note (about five bucks)--I realize the money means more to him than me, but give me a freaking break--talk about a scam artist. I was just disgusted, and forced me to put up my guard even more.

Took a break, and hired a motorbike to take me to some of the imperial tombs in the afternoon. The tombs are upriver, and are built along the hillside. There are five sites, but you only really need to see two of them to get the full gist--especially when you do it in the afternoon, like I did, when it is boiling outside and you are sweating in places you didn't know you had sweatglands.

The tombs are spectacular--more like open air mausoleum than tombs, on well-manicured and landscaped grounds with ponds and various gardens. In terms of architecture--it is pretty similar to traditional chinese architecture--whereas the traditional architecture of Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand all share similar features, the mountain range running down west Vietnam appears to have formed a physical divide and prevented the spread of that tradition to Vietnam.

It was just hot as hell--easily the second hottest place I've been in other than Cambodia (Vietnam has the harsher sun and less havens from it, Cambodia has the hotter winds).

Like I said, the free beer at the hostel tasted great when you've just been outdoors in around 100+degree ready and a glaring sun.

Had an early wake up call (not so surprising--in these past 8.5 weeks, I've probably had more pre-630am wake up times than I've had in the past six years combined--including my 10pm wake up call for Merapi) to take the DMZ tour, which takes the entire day, mainly because of the considerable amount of driving involved.

I have to admit, I was somewhat disappointed by the DMZ tour--but most of that is due to my own expectations. When you imagine the DMZ, you think it will be a place like the borderland between South Korea and North Korea, that the area will be deserted and preserved the way it looked nearly 30 years ago.

That said, it's been 30 years--and Vietnam has been united since then. Life goes on, people move on, and the DMZ pretty much resembles the rest of the Vietnamese countryside--with one notable exception--all the buildings were built after 1975--lots of ricefields and farmers, with various villages along the highways. The legendary McNamara line is no more--and only a rusted American tank, somewhat hidden from the highway, shows where the line once stretched.

I would have probably gotten more out of the tour if I had done some reading beforehand, had grown up in the 60s, or was led by a vet who could point out what some of the sites used to look like.

We started out by driving along highway 9--the main east to west artery that was built originally by the French and is now part of a larger international route that links Vietnam to Thailand through Laos. During the Vietnam War, highway 9 was the main transit route for Americans, as American bases and airfields populated either side of the road. Very little remains, though, of these bases, aside from various depressions.

You drive up into the hills near the Lao border, and the views of the riverside and the hills are spectacular, and you begin to appreciate the difficulty of waging a war in these conditions. The Rockpile and Razorback Ridge are easily visible from highway 9, as is one river crossing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The trip up highway 9 culminated at Khe Sanh--the site of an American base, and a bloody battle between the North Vietnamese and the Americans. The base is in a beautiful location--in a high valley surrounded by high mountains and hills. Little remains of the actual base though--only a few depressions where buildings were obviously situated, and the airstrip itself. The place is now one giant coffee growing plantation, except for the runway, which, for some reason, won't allow anything to grow on it. Because of the changing times, it is extremely difficult to imagine or picture the battle--but that doesn't make it any less real to those brave soldiers who endured it.

Drove back down Highway 9, past the DMZ and north to the town of Vinh Moc--notable because they built a series of underground tunnels where the villagers lived for six years. The war is most visible there, as bomb craters and depressions surround the site, and it is pretty amazing to think that an entire village was able to endure the war by hiding out in these tunnels.

Crossed over the traditional dividing river between North and South, where remnants of propaganda blasting loudspeakers still linger on both sides.

Again, the current state of the DMZ makes difficult to picture that a war once took place there--evidence is hidden, and you have to know what you are looking for in order to see signs that something took place--occasionally you see small circular depressions along the roadside that don't look natural, and the plant life is generally stunted--it all looks young and the forests are second growth--indicative of the defoliants used by the U.S. to clear the vegetation from the area.

Driving back to Hue, got caught up in the typical afternoon rain that falls, but makes for a spectacular scene. I've never seen a greener place--and it is vivid, kelly green, not dry faded green.

Of course, the advantage of the rain is that it actually cools off after it falls--and it feels so much nicer out.

Watched the world cup that night--didn't have much of a choice--no tv in any bar was showing anything else, although my hostel owner tried to keep it on Aussie Rules Football for as long as possible, and we had fun making fun of the soccer players (he isn't a fan, and neither am I--not until they eliminate diving).

Slept in a little bit the next day, since my body was drained from two straight pre 6am wakeups, and walked over to the Forbidden City--a beautiful place where the Vietnamese emperor once lived--like the tombs, the place looks very Chinese--although there is a big picture of Uncle Ho on the frontgate, just like Mao is on the Forbidden City in Beijing. Vietnamese tourists easily outnumbered western tourists by about four to one--as the former center of power of the Vietnamese ruling family, Hue is understandably a popular tourist destination for Vietnamese. Vietnamese tourists were all very nice and kind--and whenever I asked them about the ho chi minh city/saigon debate, all insisted that the city is called Saigon--a point that was most emphasized by Saigon natives.

Even though I was there in the morning, it got hot early and fast, and by noon or so I was wilting in the heat. I actually needed to take about a 2.5-3 hour break to fully recuperate I was so drained. Then the monsoons came early, which cooled things off, and I took a one hour boat ride on the perfume river.

The ride was nice in the fading afternoon light, and because the rain cleared out alot of the haze in the air, you could clearly see the outlines of mountains farther out--ones that I hadn't seen before from the same location. What made the trip, though, was a giant rainbow. It was easily the largest and most vivid rainbow that I have ever seen--and was awe-inspiring to look at.

I understandably chose sleep over soccer, and didn't watch the England-US game--a decision that I am more than happy with considering that if I had watched the game, I would have slept on the bus ride and missed out on four hours of spectacular scenery.