Hue, Vietnam

The bus from Hoi An to Hue takes about 3-4 hours. As always, the bus ride was filled with unknowns and interesting events… one notable event this time was when our already full bus stopped to pick up a bunch of locals. Of course all of the tourists were very curious to see where they were all going to sit, but to our amazement a dozen or so small (4-5 inch tall) plastic stools appeared out of nowhere and they all squatted down in the aisles of the bus. It never ceases to amaze us how many people and cargo they can fit into a tourist bus. It seems as though we have single handedly escorted countless extra packages, passengers and miscellaneous boxes and bags of ‘stuff’ across Southeast Asia.

Using an excellent recommendation from WikiTravel, we had dinner with Mr. Cu at his Madarin Café and sampled his delicious banana crepes. At the end of our meal he handed us a city walking tour map and a postcard of his own photography (way cool)! Instead of walking, we of course toured around on bicycles, riding around the old Citadel, and stopping to have some Pho and coffee along the river.

After blazing through the ‘walking’ tour on bikes, we explored some of the rest of the city and found ourselves on a street selling kitchen appliances and electronics. We really enjoyed Australia and New Zealand where there was always a kettle in hotel rooms, and were wondering if we could find something that could boil water but still be small enough for traveling. Well, we’d like to introduce you to the newest member of our travel family… our brand new $2 portable hot pot! Yes this violates our ‘go lite’ mentality however this bad boy is light weight, fits in our bags and has now served us up numerous cups of coffee, hard boiled eggs, and even steamed broccoli!

During our tour around the city we tried on about a million different knockoff North Face jackets and ended up picking a couple up in anticipation for our travels at elevation in Tibet and Nepal.

Hue is infamous for gaudy tombs of historic emperors that are located along the Perfume River. We joined a boat tour with low expectations but were pleasantly surprised by how relaxing the river cruise was.

After a full day touring tombs and temples, we boarded our first ‘sleeper bus’ to Hanoi. The journey takes about 12 hours, and leaves in the evening, to arrive in Hanoi in the morning. After a long debate we requested seats at the very back of the bus where our beds would be joined… turns out our beds were also joined with another, which meant one of us would be in the middle with an extra sleeping buddy. Luckily, our sleeping buddy was Chris, who turns out to be an archaeologist from Portland!