Hue

Today i took my first public transportation that wasn't an airplane. Weird eh? Slow 3 hour 80km train that followed the coast but way up high in the mountainous jungle. Really striking views the whole ride. There was a multi generation family on all sides of me that i interacted with a bit but they didn't speak any english. But you could tell they enjoyed the efforts and were very happy with my attemps to play with their daughter who would hang around me and run away as soon as i looked at her. Too cute. I didnt realize my stop was pulling up and they were all over it trying to explain i need to get my backpack down and get off. Very sweet.

Got to town later than i wanted but it worked out amazing. My hotel was central so i walked across the perfume river to the citadel in 20 mins from there. Sweet. Inside the citadel is the imperial palaces and inside the imperial palaces is the purple forbidden city (!!) What an awesome name. Absolutely forboden to everyone (!!!) .. who is not willing to spare $6. Otherwise not so forbidden Haha.

Apparantly it took heavy damage from the american war. They dont call it the Vietnam war of course. But there are still a ton of amazing structures standing and/or being repaired. I'm dedicating all 6 pics to it this time. Would love to post 20.

Also this area was the demilitarized zone which was home to the worst battles of the war (hamburger hill) and there's tons of military relics lying around. Some cool bars here like one (called DMZ) with an upsidedown helicopter for a ceiling fan. And another with artillary all over it as decor. There's also a big tunnel network you can tour where the civilians burrowed during the war. Wish i had time to see it. I talked to some travellers who did the Saigon ones and said it was something else. But back on the road tomorrow...En savoir plus