North Central Coast

Hue, said like Whey, is a small city which stands on the perfume river, so called due to the incense that's made near the city. It's a fairly compact city with the central area mainly for tourists, the normal bars, shops and restaurants but just the other side of the river is the ancient imperial city.

First day was spent exploring and walking by the river in the rain! I visited a museum dedicated to Ho Chi Minh which was interesting, the Vietnamese people love uncle Ho so much due to him being responsible for Vietnamese independence.

In the evening I took myself off on a food tour which was great fun, myself and 5 other like minded travellers (American, Spanish and Oz) joined Bon for a walk round Hue and eating the speciality foods of Hue. The rain fell but it didn't dampen any one's spirits. Rather describe them, see the photos, all of it was delicious! And the company was fun, Bon was a great host.

This stay in Hue was pretty full on, next day off to a tour of the demilitarized zone which used to divide north and south and was a war free zone. We visited a battle site which suffered terribly in the most recent war, Khe Sanh and we also went into "north" Viêt Nam (it was originally 2 words) and the Vinh Moc tunnels.

The tunnels were man made in 1965 in a hill to keep villagers safe from the bombs in the American War (it is not called the Viêt Nam war in Viêt Nam ). Our very sweet guide Hao (meaning flower) was clearly very passionate about the history of the war, her father fought for south Viêt Nam, we learnt so much during our very long day!

And then last day in Hue before a very long overnight journey to Hanoi for my last few days in Viêt Nam before I see my Brother and Tash!

My last day in Hue was in the Imperial city. I made the visit to the Imperial Citadel and it was amazing, built in the 19th century, designed in 1803 to 1804 and built from 1805 to 1832 (Yes, I did listen to my audio tour) it is a complex of palaces, temples, pagodas, theatres, resting places, buildings to "get air" and gardens for generations of the royal family. I took it all in, I took far too many photos, sat peacefully and observed the quietness. The wierd thing was, just over the wall of the citadel was the city, you could see sky scrapers just over the wall and you knew the traffic was there.

The citadel is obviously very important for the Vietnamese people, so many people dressed in full Vietnamese dress and having professional photo shoots. I cheekily have some of them in my photos!

It was a great place to spend a day. At the end I challenged myself to walk right the way round the exterior wall, who knows how long it was but it was a nice walk!

Next stop Hanoi and straight to La han bay after an overnight bus for a little treat of a cruise!Read more