To Hue: the Battle of Hue

February 8, 2007

A nice quiet night in our hotel room, away from the busy road and near the ocean. We eat our cereal and are just about ready to roll our bikes out of the room as the sun rises over the mountains of Hai Van pass.

On our way out of town we pick up some bread and drinking water. It's about 65km along Highway 1, a few minor passes over low mountain ranges that run perpendicular to the coast. In between flat land, just above sea level, with rice paddies and vegetable gardens. We pass by a larger lagoon, people live in house boats on the water. The kids are aggressive demanding money. Some kids on a water buffalo get carried away and grab onto Rachel's rear rack almost making her fall. Patrick grabs his arm and convinces him to let go.

We get to Hue at about 11am, find a nice room on the third floor of a guesthouse. Nice veranda around the building, hot water, TV for $7USD. We have lunch, get cash from an ATM and check email. There is a message from Bike China, Peter Snow in Chengdu, that he has two people for the Tibet tour in May. That's earlier than expected, we need to see if that would fit our schedule.

The south side of Hue along the Perfume river is not very scenic, just like any other city in Vietnam, certainly not as nice as Hoi An. The sights are across the river where the emperor built a huge walled city, a 10km long moat and wall surrounds the area that suffered greatly during the war; a lot of it is farm land now.

Inside the citadel is another moat and wall surrounding the emperor's quarters, some temples and official buildings. During the "American war" the city was a battleground of one of the longest and bloodiest battles, the Battle of Hue.We walk around for a couple of hours. A lot of it either does not exist anymore or was damaged, but there is still some nice architecture and woodwork to be seen.

We have dinner on our way back in a recommended restaurant with a deaf-mute owner. That must have caught on because there are three deaf mute restaurants in one street. The food is very good and cheap too. We have rice paper in which we roll chicken/shrimp, fresh vegetables, stir fried beans, rice and cucumber, then dip the thing in peanut sauce. Very nice!

On our way back to the hotel we book a trip down the Perfume river for tomorrow morning.