Hue: The former Capital

The sun has been spotted! For the first time since I flew from Chicago I have seen it!! Up until this point a good day was completely cloudy with only a little bit of drizzle. Ugh. It’s been a long time coming! I was actually able to take out my camera and have nice light and not have to worry about hiding it under my poncho in the rain! Although right now I’m having some electrical problems with my camera to computer USB connection, so I can’t post any photos until I buy I card reader (I hope). But I’ll post them here when I do!

 

As, the title suggest, now I’m in Hue, in central Vietnam. It was the former capital of the Nguyen dynasty from the early 1800’s the mid 1900’s, so it has lots of cool historical stuff to see. Although a bunch of it got destroyed during the war, sadly. A Dutch girl and I rented motorbikes and headed to check out the emperor’s tombs outside the city, as well as the Imperial City, walled off in the heart of the city. I guess the Imperial City got bombed pretty badly during the war, so most of it is restored, with fresh looking concrete. I think downtown Naperville probably has more actual historic buildings, but it was still interested to walk around and learn the history. But wow, was it nice to have a sunny day. I actually burned quite a bit, as I hadn’t even thought to buy any sunscreen yet!

The Emperors’ tombs were quite the spectacle. It wasn’t just the tombs themselves, each Emperor had is own little walled in sanctuary, complete with lakes, gardens, pagodas, and god knows how many concubines. They lived well! Interestingly enough, one of the emperors, Tu Duc, is not actually buried in his supposed tomb. Two hundred laborers set off to build him a separate tomb in a hidden location somewhere outside the city. Apparently when they returned, all of them were beheaded, as to keep the secret safe. How’s that for a thank you? Brutal! And to this day, no actually know where his real burial site is…

 

Now I’m backtracking, but before I arrived in Hue I was situated in a more rural place called Phong Nha, which is known for its caves. It actually has the largest cave chamber in the world in the Hang Son Doong cave, but to experience that one you have to do a 5 day expedition for the small sum of $3,000; which is a little too steep for me. But there are a bunch of other caves in the area that you can ride a motorbike to. And of course being in a cave is a good way to escape the rain!

 

I’d also read about a place called ‘Pub with Cold Beer’ which is a little place in the countryside and they grow all their own food and when you order chicken, you have the option to kill it yourself. It sounded like a cool concept, I wasn’t sure if I’d do it myself or just watch it happen, but it’s nice to know exactly where your food is coming from! In the age of ‘farm to table’ this was about as real as it gets. But sadly the path was too muddy to get there and we had to turn around after getting our motorbikes stuck. Some local famers were laughing at our attempts in vain!

 

And before Phong Nha I was in Ninh Binh, which is known for it’s beautiful limestone rock formations, similar to Yangshuo, in China. It was a great place to rent a motorbike and cruise around the countryside! Of course it was cloudy all the time and occasionally misty or drizzling, so the photos I took were disappointing. I can only image it during the summer…

 

So overall this trip has been fine, but this weather has certainly dampened quite a few things. I guess there was crazy flooding in Southern Thailand and now Vietnam is getting the tail endof that storm. And as glad as I am about our little bit or sunny weather, turns out it is just a tease! Here is the forecast for the my next two destinations:

 

AGHGHGHG. I guess I will be getting to the very south ASAP.

 

 

 

 

Hanoi

From Shanghai I booked a flight to Hanoi via Hong Kong. I know I said I was going to New Zealand, but the funds are a little tight this year, so I ended up cancelling that flight and heading to the last Southeast Asian country I hadn’t been to: Vietnam. Now Vietnam doesn’t make getting a visa as easy as the rest of SE Asia. You need to apply online for a pre-approved visa on arrival letter. Once you have this stamped letter you then give it to the visa office at the airport and then they will issue you your visa. I was stuck behind a bunch of tour groups in this process, so it took about two hours waiting at the airport to finally get my passport with my 30 day visa back. 

 

After that I finally made it down to baggage claim only to discover my bag wasn’t there. I checked to see if they maybe picked it up and stashed it somewhere, but nope. Not this again! In my small experience these Chinese airlines suck with transferring luggage. I filed a report with the lost luggage desk, gave them my email, my hotel’s phone number and address and headed on my way. My flight was two different airlines (China Eastern + Jetstar) and the only number they gave me was the Hanoi airport’s lost and found department. I also didn’t have a working phone number, so all contact would have to be through my hotel. It was not very reassuring. 

Photo I found online with some Hanoi traffic. Pretty wild!

I hopped on the bus to the city center and found my way to the hotel during a slight drizzle. It turns out this drizzle would not stop for the next three days I was there! So needless to say, I didn’t enjoy Hanoi very much. It literally did not stop raining/drizzling the entire time I was there. The weird thing is January is supposed to have the least precipitation out of any month in Vietnam. In the north it’s supposed to be kind of cold, and maybe cloudy or foggy, but not rainy! So under normal circumstances I would have left as soon as possible, as Hanoi isn’t really that interesting of place. But given my current predicament I was basically trapped! After more than 48 hours I had heard absolutely nothing from anyone. No emails, no phone calls the hotel, no nothing. I was able to call Jetstar’s Vietnam office and they just told me to call China Eastern! The lost and found department at the airport also had nothing, or at least that’s what I thought they were telling me in very broken English. Hmm. 

this was the only picture I took in Hanoi on my phone

Finally in the afternoon of the third day the hotel reception told me my backpack had showed up. What?! No phone calls or emails or anything? But okay! I couldn’t really complain, I was just glad to be able to get the hell out of this city. I was starting to go a little bit nuts. Originally I had planned on seeing some other famous sights in the North (Halong Bay, Sapa), but this weather was so unseasonably rainy and miserable that I couldn’t deal with it any longer. I had also considered buying/renting a motorbike and driving it all the way down to Ho Chi Minh City. But driving in a cold drizzle for the first week of the trip sounded awful, so screw that too. I took a local bus to a place called Ninh Binh, 100km south of Hanoi, in a fruitless search for greener pastures.

The northern itinerary