28th April 2010
We had a bus booked to Hue this afternoon, but that didn’t leave until 1pm, so we had a fairly quiet morning, a lot of which was packing our bags up ready to move on. This was a bit like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole - what with the coats we bought in Sapa, and new clothes we’ve had made in Hoi An, our bags are becoming rather stretched to capacity. It looks like we might have to post some more stuff home once we get back to Saigon.
All packed up and checked out of the room, we only had an hour to kill before the bus picked us up which passed quickly enough. On to the bus and we were soon making our way out of Hoi An, picking up a few other people along the way.
The journey to Hue takes about 3 hours, passing through the 6280m-long Hai Van Tunnel, which opened in 2005. This has shaved an hour off of the journey between the two cites, but along with cutting the time, it also cuts out some of the amazing views from the top of the Hai Van Pass. Never mind, we’ve had some pretty good views on our travels already.
We arrived in Hue around 4:30, and made the short walk to our hotel. The hotel is really nice, very friendly staff again, and we’ve got a nice room on the 6th floor overlooking the river. Should do us quite nicely for a few days.
This evening we found a nice little restaurant with some very friendly waitresses who recommended some local Hue specialities, including rice paste with shrimps and pork wrapped in banana leaves, fried rice then steamed in a coconut, again with shrips and pork, and finally some beef wrapped in some lot leaves. It was all delicious, especially the beef. I think we might be returning there tomorrow night to try some more local dishes!
After dinner we went for a walk along the river, where there were a number of boats loading up with Vietnamese tourists for boat trips up the river.
