Hue (hoo-ay) is OK.
It's a city with a lot of history... it was nearly completely decimated by the French, and very little of its original architecture remains, with the exception of the Citadel, Imperial Palace, and some mausoleums and pagodas along the Perfume River.
I arrived on the fabulous overnight sleeper bus from Hanoi after spending 14 hours in an impossibly small (read: perfect for me) sleeper compartment. It was shockingly fast and comfortable. The greatest discomfort came from the excruciatingly loud Celine-Dion-Vietnamese-Style songstress blasting through the speakers as we set of, and at 5:00 the next morning.
That, and poor Laura, the Irish girl I met screamin,g in her brougue "Fuckinell!!" She was even more tortured than I was by the music.
Laura, Eva, Daniel and I trust this man at the bus depot to take us to his B&B. He explains that there is no committment, we can see the room, and if we don't like it, he'll bring us back. We trust him, as this is very common practice here. The place is great. The three girls are sharing a $15 room and Daniel gets his own $10 room, payable in USD. Everyone is nice, the place is clean, A/C and balcony, hot shower included.
We walk to the Imperial Palace, and Daniel is smart enough to realize that the Tuk-Tuk (wheeled cart) driver who's telling us that the Palace is closed until 1 pm is lying. Turns out a common scam is to tell tourists that attractions are closed until a certain time, so that you're more than willing to shell out some dough to take a tour of the city in his tuk-tuk for an hour or so.
There are scams abound, but they're (so far) very harmless, and not very expensive. In Vietnam, where everything is very cheap for us, even getting scammed a bit really only sets you back $3 or so.
It's really hot. Easily approaching 95 degrees. Yet, it's not humid at all, and I am thankful.
Laura and Eva are dying.
We spend the rest of the afternoon longing at the hotel pool near our B&B, the best $4 each of us had spent in a while. I even started on the math homework I brought for myself.
We go the the DMZ (demilitarized zone) bar, an expat bar in town, have a couple of drinks and call it a night. Laura and Eva take a tuk-tuk back, Daniel and I decide to enjoy the cool breeze we'd discovered for the first time that day. We of course get lost with the crappy map on the back fo the B&B's card, as lost as one can get in a tiny place like Hue, and it takes us an hour to get back.
We have an 8 am tour down the Perfume River. I'm awakened at 5 in the morning by a loudly groaning Laura. She pulled a muscle or something on the bus the night before, and now she is in such pain she decides to go to the hospital. I try to convince her that any pharmacy will gladly give her valium, but she's adamant. I can't get back to sleep, so I decide to go off to the cafe early, where there's free internet and the strongest iced Viet coffee I've had yet.
It takes me less than 10 minutes. Evidently, we needed to only go down one street the night before. Duh.
I ran out of the cafe after making a phone call so as not to miss the boat, literally. I sit down on this boat, about to take a day long trip down the Perfume river, and I say to Daniel, "When I travel, I fell like I'm always looking for my stuff."And then it hits me like lightening. I LEFT MY PHONE AT THE CAFE.
motherfucker.
I just bought a new one LAST WEEK.
AND, most importantly, it's my most convenient connection to home when the internet isn't working. I felt sick to my stomach.
Luckily, I met some really cool people on this boat. Rachel, from England, has been going around SE asia on her own since February. She had Dengue fever. There is no preventative nor cure for dengue, and, according to Daniel, if you get it more than twice it might kill you. This gives me some anxiety. She's my new hero.
Martin is some ridiculously well-traveled teacher from Vancouver. He's been everywhere.
Coolest was Anh, or Andy, a Vietnamese guy, traveling with his dad. He'd just gotten his green card after living in San Diego for 10 years, and this was his first time back. He heard me complaining about losing my phone, and he interrupts us, telling us that it's better to get this ticket on the boat that pays for all of the motorbike transfers to the mausoleums. He is cheerful, happy, friendly, and adorable. W ewind up hanging with him and his dad the whole afternoon, as he tries to work his Vietnamese magic with the locals so that we don't get ripped off at every corner.
The trip down the river was gorgeous. We passed by lots of other tourboats, but also regular workers doing their work down the river. Women and men are bent over the boat, gathering river mud for laying mortar on buldings, Andy explains. It's back-breaking work.
We stop off at various locations to see temples, pagodas, mausoleums, gardens. Each one more opulent than the next.
Oh, but that motorbike.
The ubiquitous motorbike.
Everywhere you go in vietnam, there are people hangin around on these simple motorbikes, beckoning you to hop on for a ride. If you're lucky, you get a helmet. If you're unlucky, as it seems is the case more often than I can believe, you get off on the right side of the motorbike instead of the left. On the right side of the bike is the exhaust pipe, which is hotter than hot. A number of the girls I saw at the hostel had 4 - 5" diameter gaping, oozing, 2nd - 3rd degree wounds from a millisecond brush up against the exhaust pipe. This is so common, it's called getting an "Asian tattoo."
I am PETRIFIED.
But I have no choice.
I'm holding on for dear life, the bottom of my feet sweating in a way I didn't know was possible, making sure my right leg is far from the exhaust, repeating to myself the mantra "getoffontheleft."
I escape unharmed.
I have a sick feeling that much of my trip in Asia is going to be dealing with my mild paranoia.
Later in the day, I meet Veronica and Anna, from Boston. Veronica has an office phone, and lets me text my phone. I basically beg for its return. Mr. Linh at the Mandarine Cafe has it safe and sound, ready for me to pick up. They absolutely refuse the tip I try to leave, in a place where everyone is trying to get an extra $3 out of me.
This is the yin and yang of life that never ceases to give me pause and appreciate the awesomeness of how it feels when someone you don't know can affect you in a beautiful and positive way. I need to remember to do this for others every opportunity I have.
It was a very overwhelming day, but it was amazing.
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