What a Day Getting to Hue!

So many people have told me how beautiful Hue is and how I needed to make sure I got to visit the town and see all the ancient monuments. What no one mentioned though was the trip to get to Hue. We rode in a tiny car from Hoi An to Hue. It took about 3 hours. We passed through DaNang along the bay and it was gorgeous. As we left DaNang we started our climb up and up and up and up a mountain, around hairpin curves and playing a game resembling a cross between Chicken and Leap Frog with the oncoming high-speeding trucks coming down the mountain. While Deb was trying to snap pictures of the amazing views  of the ocean below us, I was white-knuckling the little handle over the door. At one point I was just inches away from jumping into Deb’s lap as a semi (American sized!) truck came barreling way too close.

Once on top of the mountain we reached the North/South border. The Southern side overlooked a leper colony of about 200 people. The Northern side overlooked a beautiful beach with blue water and light tan sand. At the border was a US military fort. Also at the border were a horde of women dragging us from one side to the other “helping” us take photos. They pounced on us and tried to get us to buy every darn thing they were selling. Our driver abandoned us and left us to fend for ourselves. Not fun! Then while trying to find a way to escape, we turn around to see two police officers along with a man who is video taping us with a huge production style video camera. We made our exit and put our hands up to not be filmed. As we got in the car the video man got in front and squatted down to get the camera where he could continue filming us. A lady put her head in the door as we were trying to get in and said something about it being okay and it was the police. I had no idea what she was talking about.  It was a bit unnerving.

So, down the mountain we go, then back up a mountain we go, then back down the mountain until we travel through some villages. The scenery was beautiful but the traffic, oh the traffic. I’ve gotten used to it in the city, but in the villages it seems like it’s worse. We finally got to Hue and immediately we were met by our guide and whisked out of our car and onto a boat, where again someone tied to sell to us the entire time.

Finally, we got off the boat and toured some of the “hot-spots” of Hue. It was all very interesting. Our guide turned out to be wonderfully knowledgeable about so many obscure things. We could ask him anything and he’d know the answer. He told us about trees, flowers, how to make Lotus tea, having dragonflies bite belly-buttons to learn to swim (seriously), and all kinds of stuff. He was a lot of fun.

So, very early tomorrow morning we’re off to Hanoi. It’s been a whirl-wind, but a fun one! We’re very tired and have turned into old people all of the sudden. Our bed time has been between 7 and 8 o’clock, but then we’re getting up between 3:30 and 4 in the morning. Not because we have to, but because our bodies just get up.