Hue

only a 4 hour bus ride away we arrived at hue at about noon.  i know i've said alot about it being hot in the past but THIS was the warmest.  haha  we got absolutely blasted once we stepped off the bus by the heat and everyone trying to sell something.  this is the first time i lost it, it was just too much this time.  the good news is is that it worked and i had a few feet buffer around me so i could see where the driver had thrown my pack on the sidewalk.

we walked to our hotel about 10 mins away (we are getting pretty good at this navigating thing in new places without proper maps!).  after we dumped our bags at the guesthouse we went to eat down the street and had pizza.  sometimes you just gotta have some familiar food.  this pizza was actually really good!  we would go back for more another day.  we just went back to the room after because it was too warm to even think of doing anything.

the next morning we signed up for an all day tour of the tombs and thien mu pagoda.  there were a few other things thrown in as well but they aren't worth mentioning and were created solely for the people on these types of tours.

our tour bus stopped at three tombs of the nguyen dynasty.  they were all pretty big and impressive with man made lakes and canals on the grounds.  they were also all quite similar.  you couldn't get up close to the tombs themselves.

one of these things is not like the others...

the day also included a boat ride to thien mu pagoda.  a beautiful pagoda with a lovely garden.  we had to pay for it though.  you think riding on a covered boat would be cool and refreshing but the air was thick and stagnant.  i suppose it helps you enjoy the destination more? 

the next day we switched to a nicer hotel with a pool.  we spent the day doing odd things like goign to the post office, checking out a market, watching tv in the air conditioning.  i love off days!  i think i'm beginning to miss a sense of a homebase.  i am not nearly done travelling yet, but every once and a while i miss not having a home to come to.  but i know that will come soon enough.  can't wait to do that with roel.

next up was the citadel.  it is a former imperial city (1804) along a river that was later heavily bombed by the americans (surprise).  so a lot of the buildings are no longer there.  but what is there is fascninating.  there is a moat within the moated perimeter which sections off the imperial enclosure which is home to the forbidden purple city which was reserved for the private life of the emporer.  the most intersting place on the grounds was the emporer's reading pagoda and garden courtyard.

the queen mom also had a huge pad with a big stone courtyard and an activities area that had a number of cool buildings.  there .  they are doing a great job with all the restoration work at the citadel.  we've seen a lot at this point and you can tell they are actually making an effort with this one.

after hue we would fly to hanoi, the capitol of vietnam.  we have been warned so many times about watching our money and how nasty it can be there.  you know we'll be watching our cab driver even more closely thsi time.