Nathan’s Blog

We boarded our flight to Hue (pronounced who-ay) at something like 7am, which had meant an alarm that had a 4 in it – we weren’t overly chatty on this particular flight.

We’d pre-arranged the hotel and jumped in a car after the usual quick round of bartering that accompanies leaving any airport or train station.

Within 30mins of arriving at the hotel we were fed and on the back of a motorbike for a tour of the city and surrounding countryside.

The hotel was family run and our guides for the day were part if the extended family. Lok was the leader and had lived in Hue all of his life, through the bad and the good.

Hue was the Imperial Captial of Vietnam until 1945, when at the end of WWII the country was divided into North Vietnam and South Vietnam at the Postdam Conference with their respective capitals of Hanoi and Saigon. It saw heavy fighting during the Vietnam war and at one point was under the control of the North after one of the war’s bloodiest battles.

We saw so much on our day trip that it’s difficult to remember everything without looking back at the pics we took. I might update this post one day with all the things we saw, but the standout was the Citidel – the former seat of various emperor’s throughout the ages.

One of the main things that sticks in my mind is that the Hue countryside was the first place that looked and felt like the version of Vietnam I had in my minds eye before I came – dense forests of tall palm trees with small canopies. This is the version gained from all those war films just before the Napalm hits.

The pace we’re travelling at is beginning to catch-up with us – we’re getting tired and craggy! Time to take things a little easier now me thinks.

Here’s a random picture of the bridge over the Perfume River at night. We were drinking beer and being eaten alive my mozzies at the time!