June 28 – Hue, Vietnam
We were barely off the train, feeling rather gross and disheveled, when we were swarmed by taxi drivers looking to take us to our hotel. We declined everyone and were looking for a Grab, but for some reason, there were only Grab motorbikes (a bit inefficient for two people with big backpacks).
As we were checking around, a local guy approached us first asking if we needed a ride anywhere, (and we were NOT interested) and then he asked where we were from as he pulled out a little journal. I said I was from Canada, and he flipped to a page written by a Canadian tourist praising this guy and his tour. I didn’t want to have anything to do with him and tried to politely decline. He kept slipping to other pages written in English from other travellers, all proclaiming this guy to be super honest and awesome and I would be missing out if I didn’t take his tour. He got Noe’s attention too and coaxed us into having a quick lunch with him across the street as he would show us the map of the route and tell us more about it. He introduced himself as Thanh (Tan). Instead, Thanh just showed us a map, and had us read more raving reviews that have few details as to what we would see. They would say things like “If you are reading this, you just came off a train and are likely looking for an adventure that is not along the beaten path. You are a lucky person to have met Thanh and I would recommend this tour to anyone!”
Basically, Thanh wanted to take us on a 2-day motorcycle tour along Ho Chi Minh Road through the mountains. In his broken English that was difficult for us to understand, Thanh was saying that we will not have seen or experienced Vietnam if we didn’t take his tour. He showed us his tattoo that read “Happy why not” and emphasized that he just wants us to be happy. We started to humour him over our bowls of Pho, or what they call “Bun Ba Hue” in Hue. Ok, so how much is this tour? $150usd per person?!!! No way! Noe managed to get the price down to $180usd for the both of us, everything included, provided that Noe drive his own bike and only Thanh takes us on the tour. It’s settled. Thanh and his friend take us on their motorbikes to our hotel (Thanh An Homestay). We gave Thanh 1.5 million vnd up front and would give him the rest (2 million something vnd) in the middle of the trip starting tomorrow morning.
Cool! We are going to do something adventurous like the rugged backpackers we are trying to be! Noe and I have really enjoyed and learned a lot from local people in our past travels through Mexico, and hope to be able to learn about Vietnam from Thanh, a seasoned 45 year-old Vietnamese man who has travelled Ho Chi Minh (Adventure) Road so many times. He must know all of the best places and significance of them along the way.
After a much needed shower and nap, we went out on the town to explore Hue. We stopped by the Royal Artifacts museum and saw royal robes, furniture, pottery, jewelry, pipes, spittoons, fancy boxes and more. No pictures were allowed – sorry :-S
Pitstop for a coconut and coffee. Some nice gentlemen were kind enough to teach me the word for “good” (when referring to food) which was “Ngon”- don’t really remember how to pronounce it. I was pointing at different things that were good and calling them “Ngon”, including my coconut and Noe’s coffee. I pointed at Noe and called him “Ngon” as well. The men started laughing really hard. I don’t know why they thought that was funny – I personally think I found myself a good man. Waaaaay later on, I realized that “Ngon” actually means “tasty.” Haha oops…
The next ‘must-see’ was the Imperial (Emperial?) City… But Google betrayed us and gave the wrong opening hours. We were too late to go inside the city. But we got a good look of the outside!
And the inside of the Emperial City Public Washroom! I really had to go, so I went up to one of the staff girls and asked where the washroom was… She was so confused. I tried “washroom” and “bathroom” but she kept shaking her head. Noe was about to mime peeing until I looked on Noe’s phone for this symbol:
“Aaahhh toilet” she said, giggling. She pointed me in the right direction.
On our night walk through Hue, we saw tiny lizards the size of an average beetle, toads that can do tricks (it jumped over Noe’s hand when he tried to block it), cool Asian palaces and what look like pyramids in the Twilight with children flying kites in the square.
We came to a rainbow bridge as we were walking through the night market by the river, we watched the Dragon Boats (Huge boats with dragon heads) go by and checked out the local merchandise.
One thing I noticed walking the streets of Hue, was the sheer number of Marijuana venders asking us if we want some. It’s illegal! According to other travellers, there was some advertising for prostitutes…but no one approached Noe (being engaged and all).
On our way back towards our hotel, a girl came up to us (NOT a prostitute) and asked if we were travellers and if we would like a free tour of the city. She was maybe 14/15 years old and really sweet with really good English. Serina (her English name) wanted to practice her English in preparation for an oral exam. She showed us the boardwalk, pointed out the main hangouts for young people, discussed what the boardwalk was made with and taught us some new Vietnamese words (though I have since forgotten). As she was showing us around, young kids would watch us wide-eyed and attempt to get Serina’s and our attention by smiling and waving and muttering little hellos. There was a dance group on the boardwalk demonstrating their best Asian pop dance moves, guys (I think?) with tight pants showing off their skinny legs. I wanted to jump in and learn some moves, but I would quickly become a spectacle for the locals if I did that. Serina really wanted me to though, haha.
Serina asked us what we felt like doing, and I asked if I could invite her for a bubble tea for showing us around. She was humble and didn’t want to accept (I found this to be characteristic of Vietnamese people…seriously, they will not accept tips), but I insisted, so she took us to the best bubble tea place in town called Royaltea. I asked for whatever she was having which had cream cheese in it! It actually wasn’t that bad – very rich though.
We had to call it a night, said goodbyes and walked back to our homestay. The road that our place was on was party central. This was equivalent to Granville Street in Vancouver. Bars and stores, music in the street, except it was mostly 90s hit music like Britney and Backstreet. A band was playing American songs in the middle of an intersection. Noe wanted to get to work on his travel video and I was keen to go shopping! He gave me his wallet and said “Have fun”. I felt this was horribly cliche but wasn’t about to complain – in fact, I was all smiles and giddiness. I went from shop to shop, comparing styles and fabrics. Definitely need something hippy, flowy, sexy, tropical and relatively cheap. I found some! No photos though…Sorry.
It was approaching 11pm when I got back to the room and you could hear the 90s music blasting outside. Noe was still hard at it, working on his video account of our trip so far. While I drifted off to sleep to the sound of 90s music and Netflix, Noe worked through the night like a zombie.
The next morning, we slept in a little longer than we should have and frantically packed up our things to meet Thanh for our motorbike adventure on Ho Chi Minh Road – the topic of my next post! Thanks for reading! Hue was not the most exciting part of this trip so far, but I anticipate more interesting adventures 🙂
Laramie Travels the World 