Hue

We finished our visit to Cat Ba island by taking a 5.45 am boat - kind of to punish ourselves for getting up late during a couple of last days and to catch the best light for photos in the morning. Once on the boat around 6.00 am the national anthem was played on TV. No-one though paid any attention nor bothered to stand-up - then in the middle of it a little girl stood up and switched the channel to early morning aerobics which we have seen live on the streets in Hanoi - no one protested. This is in great contrast to Thailand where even in cinemas before a movie is played everyone stands up while the anthem is being aired...

The research which we have made on finding the right travel agency for our Halong Bay trip payed off in a very handsome way. Although we ended up doing the Halong Bay and Cat Ba island trip on our own we did use the travel agent services - we bought ourselves an open bus ticket down South to Saygon. Basically, we can travel any day and stop anytime along the route. We have also decided to buy a sleeper bus since it was only marginally more expensive. We did not expect much considering our previous experiences with sleeper buses in India and with travel agents in general. The moment of truth came yesterday. We got picked up by a nice taxi to an unknown location for the departure of the bus - nice taxi's do happen...but this time a nice vehicle arrived which considering all what we have seen so far resembled more a plane than a bus - we boarded and felt almost like flying in business class. At least this time we have not gotten screwed :) Newertheless lately Rita has been slightly disappointed with my general unwillingness to bargain - in general it was my job to get the prices right but somehow I run out of steam. Since our adventure with the Cat Ba 'mafia' I have however regained my willingness and it is quite tough to take advantage of us or even get slightly more than what it should be. Hotel rooms feel now like real bargain and pineapple like it would come for free. My confidence came back and it is as easy as before. Our ususal initiati0n period has been completed, though it costed a bit more than in the previous countries...

We have arrived to Hue early in the morning, checked in, took shower and set off to discover the town. We also had an excellent breakfast (Rita nowadays already eats local breakfast - I cannot in-take additional noodles for breakfast - eating noodles or rice twice per day is the maximum I have achieved so far.) After breakfast we rented bicycles as this is our favourite mode of discovering new places.

Hue served as the political capital from 1802 to 1945, when the 13th emperor of the Nguyen dynasty surrendered to the communists, opening up the Imperial Enclosure with the Forbidden Purple City to the public. The sights in town, especially the Forbidden Purple City which in the past was reserved only for the private life of the emperor have seen greated times than today, but being listed amongst the UNESCO World Heritage Sites it is now under renovation. We did not emabark on discovering the Demilitarized Zone which served as the dividing line between South and North Vietnam during the last war, nor the Royal Tombs, which can be visited in the frame of organized trips, instead visited the Thien Mu Pagoda which was quite different from what we have seen in any other country we have visited so far. Chinese seem to have much more influence here so the pagodas here have 'courtyards' which you have to cross before you get to the most important place.

Hue during our visit was preparing for celebrating the The fifth United Nations Day of Vesak - a Buddhist festival - both locals and foreigners see it as a prove that religious freedom is being restored in Vietnam. Before I guess communism was the official religion - I think earlier religions had to be banned because communism is as vague as a religion - you just have to believe in it since you will never see any benefit of it during your mortal life :) Anyway in the evening we saw a huge parade of portable shrines - something a bit similiar to Songkran celebrations in Thailand but without splashing the water.