Hue - 8th June 2009

We had an early morning today; our tour bus to give us a guide around Hue was due to arrive at 8am, so we had to pack our bags, and eat breakfast prior to it arriving.
I had some tasty black tea, rather a nice change from all the green tea I'd been having recently, and also some bread and jam. Anja came down shortly after, and decided against eating the almost raw 'boiled' egg she'd been given!
The bus was a tad late, and it was full of people expecting a Vietnamese tour guide, so after arriving at some unknown location, they shuffled around the buses, and we were given a rather arrogant tour guide. He kept on saying 'you know _____' after every word longer than two syllables! It was rather frustrating! Anja disliked him immensely too! Our first stop was at a 'Conical hat making village' and 'Incense stick making village' which was actually just a road with lots of touristy shops that happened to make and sell conical hats and incense sticks. It was, however, rather interesting seeing them being made. They had cinamon and also sandlewood incense sticks, made by having the two mixed with water, to make a sort of glue, and the using the premade stick, and rolling the paste around the top, as if covering a stick with some kind of icing. The lady apparently made tens of thousands of the incense sticks per day, and she indeed was very quick in doing so.
The conical hats were interesting to see being made. If you held them up to the light they also have a pattern which I'd never noticed before. I managed to resist buying one which makes my luggage a bit more managable!
Next stop was to our first tomb. There were three tombs we were visiting today; the first was a king with smallpox, the second was a homosexual king, and the third was a sexy king (apparently); he had 143 children with 5 women, so I suppose he must have been doing something right, or he just had a lot of spare time!
The first tomb was build before the king died; so he lived in this 'tomb' which was more like a living grounds. It was build in such a way that it followed feng shui. It had the 4 sacred animals of Vietnam; the unicorn for peace, the dragon for power, and two others. There was a lovely lake, and a rocky area which was a separate island. They put lots of small creatures on this area, so the king with smallpox could have a chance to actually be able to hunt, as with being ill, he wasn't the strongest against fellow men in hunting.
The second tomb was much more beautiful than the first; it had more dragons around the area and had a beautiful view of greenary and the valley below. There was fake marble, actually made out of concrete, and a very colourful room which had a beautifully painted whispy black/grey and white pattern with dragons in it. Both of these tombs had separate entrances for the civilians and the military and finally for the king. Also, each king has his own 'conquibines' (no idea what that word means or how to spell it) who must hang around and not be employed by a future king after this kings death, otherwise they may face execution. The homosexual had all female conquibines, and had male 'servants' to serve him sexually!
The third tomb we decided to give a miss, as we were exhausted by the immense heat, and decided that we'd rather lie back on a hammock and relax, rather than seeing the less interesting of the three tombs.
We next stopped for lunch, in the office we'd been in the previous day to secure our booking on the night bus for this evening. There was a delicious all inclusive buffet, full of rice dishes, chips, salad, bread, fruit... I can't remember all of it, but it certainly filled me up!
Anja popped across the road to pick up the tailor-made thai fisherman's 3/4 trousers which she'd ordered the day before.
We then all got back on the bus to go to the citadel. On the way, the tourguide said that after getting on the boat, we had to make our own way back to our separate hotels, which all of us were fine with, except one lady, who I thought was rather mad, as she didn't know which hotel she was in! She said she just got put on the back of a motorbike and got whizzed onto the minibus! I had no idea how someone could arrive at a hotel, stay the night, and have no idea what the name of the hotel was, or where it was! Even though I usually have no idea, I usually carry in my pocket a little business card with the address and a map of the hotel location on it!
The citadel was on a very large area of land, and had a grand entrance, with the same 3 doorways; for civilians, militants and the king. There was a yellow roof, for where only the king must stay. It is illegal for civilians to have a yellow roof, as it is meant only for the king. The roof looked like lots of coins had been stacked up on it, with decorative dragons along the edges. At one side of the wall, up high, was a bell, and at the other, a huge drum. It wasn't a particularly entertaining visit, although some of it was pretty. There was a room with the king's chair and 'walking chair' transportation system which was quite cool. Depending on the size of the king, they would be carried by either 4 or 8 people. There were also photographs of the citadel in the olden days, including one showing kneeling elephants, bowing to the king.
The most exciting part of the citadel, was when Anja and I were just walking along, and a local lady grabbed Anja as if she was famous and got her friend to take a photo of the two of them! I got a photo of them too, but it was really strange!! The lady must have been in her 50s! I didn't really see the excitement! Maybe they thought Anja was a celebrity, due to her large sunglasses or something!
The final stop was to the pagoda where young monks train, and where the monk who burned himself to death in protest against civil liberties being taken away, had been trained. The car he had got out of shortly before setting himself alight was in the monastry. There were boys as young as 8, with their heads shaven except on very long bunch of hairat the front. It looked rather strange. The kids were sitting a few metres apart around the sides of a room. They were laughing and giggling, and didn't seem to be studying the book in front of them, although it must have been hard with lots of tourists peering in on them! There was a more studious class of boys aged around 14 who had a different haircut to the younger boys. Further on, was a boy getting the hair surrounding his long bunch, shaved off. There were some monks in their 20s doing some gardening too.
We then got onto a dragon shaped boat and headed back towards the town. We got chatting to the crazy lady from the mini bus, who told us she was on a 18 day tour of Vietnam, and she'd flown into Hue at 5am, been dropped at her hotel, and then immediately picked up by a motodriver to catch up to the tour, and had been told that everything would be sorted out for her! She wasn't so crazy after all! She was actually really nice, and from Cambridge, England. We wished her the best of luck as she whizzed off again back to hopefully the hotel where she'd dropped her luggage at!
We bought some biscuits on our walk back to the hotel, before cleaning ourselves up ready for our overnight on the sleeping bus. We didn't want to venture out to get some proper food as we had only arrived back around 4.30pm and had been told the bus would pick us up sometime between 5 and 5.30pm. Eventually it came shortly after 6pm, and it was only a minibus, that transferred us to a park where we moved onto the sleeping bus.
Our first impressions of the sleeping bus was good. Thankfully we both managed to get a ground floor bed, and it was pretty comfortable, although it hugged my hips slightly. It was long enough and had plenty of headroom. The bus seemed to have a bit of trouble setting off, but eventually it got going!
At 8pm, the driver got out and started chatting up a motorcyclist, whilst having a smoke. This infuriated me, as he could at least have let the rest of us off the bus, or let us know what was happening. Eventually, after lots of grunts and groans from the bus, and probably the people on it too, we got told, only in Vietnamese, that the bus had some sort of problem, and that we all had to get off and get dinner. I had some delicious noodles and vegetables, and went to the loo, before getting back on the bus again. I wasn't quite sure what had happened, and why the bus still was having problems, but eventually it got started again, even after stalling a couple of times in the middle of the road!!
Eventually we were on the move, and I was fast asleep in no time!