Hue

3 - 4 April

We caught the sleeper bus from Hoi An the Hue in the morning. It was strange to be travelling whilst led down, but it was a good excuse for a little extra sleep. The road up was lovely and coastal.

In Hue we dodged a rogue taxi driver for a legit metered taxi to our hotel. The rogue gave us a price of 50,000 and and we ended up paying just 16,000 with the meter so it pays to check, kids!

As normal, we dumped our bags and headed for the main sight, the citadel, imperial enclosure and forbidden city. A citadel, within a citadel, within a citadel. Confusing yes, but much easier to understand when you are there. It was largely destroyed during the American War and there is a lot of restoration work taking place that offered a glimpse of the former glory of the Emperors home. At times though the destruction is so devastating it's hard to imagine so much damage could be done so recently.

In one corner of a temple was an exhibition with images taken from French colonial times showing the citadel in action hosting meetings and ceremonies. Its wonderful to see the story behind the building. So often in historical sights we must use our imagination and art to form an image in our mind, never truly knowing what things were like. It was refreshing to see what it would have truly been like. Though this is fairly recent history, the change in culture and continent makes it all feel as though it could be thousands of years old.

Due to time restrictions we only got the day in Hue, but I feel like it was enough to get to grips with the citadel, and eat some yummy Bun Bo Hue, a beef noodle soup with chilli!

We spent the next day making travel arrangements before boarding the overnight train to Hanoi for the last of our Vietnam adventures!