Vietnam, Cambodia & Thailand

I’ll be honest in that I won’t go recommending you spend 13 hours on an overnight Vietnamese train. However, it’s one of those things that you’re glad you did it, but equally glad it’s over. Luckily, we got to share our train car with our friends on the trip, Helen and Anthony. They are from London and I would say they’re the most similar couple to us on the trip. We spent a good three or four hours just chatting with them and sharing beers in our train car before getting ready for bed.

Brad to come back with news that the train bathroom was covered in about an inch and a half of water which made me very nervous to use it. However, by the time I went to use it, things have resolved themselves and the floor was merely wet as opposed to covered in water. One thing that we have learned very quickly here in Vietnam is it toilet paper is not really a thing and instead they use what is referred to as the “bum gun” to clean yourself after you’ve gone to the washroom. I can’t really say I’ve gotten into this practice.

In any case, it was finally time to go to bed, and I slept on the top bunk while Brad took the bottom bunk. It was quite warm in a little car all together, and the rails were a bit rough to say the least. I think I dozed, more than I slept, and probably accumulated only about four hours of sleep by sunrise, which happened around 5:30 in the morning we all started to wake and I think all of us were finally up around six. We reached the train station at about 9 AM this morning and we were happy to get off the train.

Arriving in Hue (pronounced whey) we could already tell it was quite different than Hanoi. The streets are cleaner, the traffic is less chaotic, and generally things seem more organized. Our bus ride to the hotel only took 10 minutes. We can check into our rooms yet as they weren’t ready so our guy took us around the block to a restaurant for breakfast. The specialty in Hue is basically a meatball and noodle soup called bun bo hue. Brad and I both had bowls of it alongside iced salt coffee, which sounds odd, but is so good! It kind of tastes like a salted caramel latte!

After breakfast was over our guide tried to take us on a small little walking tour, but it was so insanely hot but all the group wanted to do was go use the pool on the seventh floor of our hotel. Luckily the hotel pool is outdoors, but is covered entirely, and the water was quite cool. Everyone found it very refreshing!

Once our rooms are ready around noon, we went and got, showered and changed, which felt great after our long time on the train earlier. We had until 2 o’clock to get ready and then we were off on our bus to the Royal Citadel, which was the King’s home. The property was incredibly large, stretching blocks and blocks long. Unfortunately, a lot of the buildings have been destroyed during the conflict between north and south Vietnam. They are still working today on some reconstruction of the site but we were able to see the theater, the reading room, and the remains of some other palaces that his many wives and concubines inhabited.

After the Citadel, we went to Tien Mu Pagoda where many monks live. This is also the place where famous monk Thich Quang Duc lived. He is the monk that set himself on fire in protest of the south Vietnamese president trying to get rid of monks and Buddhism altogether. We were fortunate enough to witness the monks gathering to chant as well, which was pretty cool to see and hear!

Or last of the day, was the royal tomb. It took a little longer to get there. It was sort out in the countryside. We got to pass a whole bunch of incense shops on the side of the road. They spit out their incense bundles in colourful patterns to attract buyers, so it’s really cool to see. We had the royal tomb all to ourselves as there were no other visitors there. The tomb was quite ornate, as one might guess. However, grave robbers stole the King’s body and so it is not so much a tomb as much as a monument.

It had been a really long day already and so the group decided to go for supper as soon as we got back to the hotel around 6 o’clock. Our guide took us to a great little restaurant that was packed with locals so we knew it was going to be good. Brad and I decided to do the set tasting menu to try a little bit of everything, and we certainly were not disappointed. I will post a picture of the menu as well for pictures of food in a separate post as I am having a difficult time remembering and describing the things that we have eaten here in Vietnam. Everything is so different than what we are used to, but we are really enjoying the local cuisine.

We’ve also discovered that small Vietnamese children seem to really enjoy practising their English with us. At dinner a couple of young girls asked us where we were from and turned and giggled. After I told her we were from Canada, I could hear them telling their other friends about us being from Canada! Walking back to the restaurant, we also ran into a few boys who were eager to practice their hellos with us. Because it is Sunday, they have closed off a lot of the streets around the hotel into pedestrian streets and it’s neat to see the street vendors out and about. We are really exhausted and are probably going to call it an early evening as we are going on a scooter to her bright and early tomorrow.Read more