Scott Fletcher Travels

Well nothing like a 7am bus from Hoi An to Hue. On arrival it was quite hot and I wanted to drop off my bags, I found a great place down a dead end lane, it was quite and had a nice garden and only $5! As it was to hot to do much I read up about Hue and found out a lot that I had no idea about.

1. Hue was the capital of Vietnam from 1802 to 1945
2. This is the city where a major part of the Tet Offensive happened ‘Battle of Hue‘, the North Vietnamese invaded held the main Citadel for three weeks and flew their flag. They killed over 3000 locals in the three weeks, anyone who possibly posed a threat.
3. The Flag tower is the tallest in Vietnam at 37m, I didn’t think that sounded impressive but it is pretty cool.
4. Rice wine is between 10-30cents for 500ml and it is about as strong as vodka, also known as Happy Water

Well after it cooled down a little it was time for a walk, I was on the south bank of the river and most of the historic sites are on the north, so I walked about 2km across the river and then to the market. This market was the same as every other market. Lunch was good, with some beef noodle soup, a funny drink and some prawn rice paper rolls. Then I walked towards the eastern side entrance of the citadel to have a walk around. The fortress is huge with a 10km perimeter, a 30m moat, and wall about 2m thick and pretty high. When I walked in it was surprising to see what was inside, it was a mixture of a town and a rural area with some rice paddies, and lakes where people were fishing. I walked around there was not a lot of individual things that were overly special that afternoon as I left the rest of it for the next day. There is an inner Citadel which was where the Emperor lived, more like palace grounds and I ended up playing soccer with some kids before walking home.

   

That night I went out for a few drinks and played some pool which was good, finally starting to get my touch back.

On Thursday I walked to the Citadel again towards the Imperial enclosure, the heat was stifling but thems the blows. The enclosure was good but doing it self guided was a little boring. Maybe because of not knowing every little detail, or maybe it was not the most thrilling thing and I was right. The flagpole and the Citadel itself were very impressive, huge structures that were started in 1804. After walking around for about four hours it was getting really hot and about 2pm so I went home for a rest. I spent the rest of the day reading and relaxing followed by a few beers.

  

Friday came and I hired another bike as I wanted to go a little further than my legs wanted to carry me, there were a Tomb of Tu Duc which was amazing. The emperors used to start building their burial enclosure long before they were going to be knocked off or die. Tu Duc had 104 wives but never had any children, the women must have been barren. The whole complex is surrounded by a huge octagonal wall, and inside were lush gardens, a lake, several temples, several tombs for wives and relatives and other ’stuff’. When a king dies usually the next king writes about his accomplishments and adds this to their tomb, Tuc had different ideas he wanted to write his own, so on a 20 tonne stone tablet brought from 500 miles away he wrote about his achievements and failures, and named his tomb ‘modest’. Weird thing is that he was never buried there.

    

Later that day a New Zealander I met Katie and I decided to go to the beach. We knew roughly where it was, and ended up going through the country side on dirt tracks for about 20km, then had to get on a little local ferry across a river with the bike, over a massive sand dune, through a cemetery to the beach, about 90mins all up. The water was warm although pretty dirty and it was already getting dark. The trip back was much more eventful, we just caught the last boat back (had to call them back as they already left). The guys on the boat were all drunk and were sharing their beer with us. Then driving back along a goat track in the dark was interesting so we stopped for dinner. The dinner was good but everyone from about 3 houses in every direction came to watch us eat it was quite funny with almost no language in common. We ended up getting some rice wine with dinner, and some to take away. Back in town there was a festival because it was the coming up to the full moon, so we had a good look around. We spent 20000 Dong ($1.50) for 1 Liter of rice wine, and two dinners. It was to easy and a great night out.

  

Photos from Hue  Where Hue is on a Map

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Tags>> Beach Hue Motorbike Rice Wine Tet Vietnam Vietnam War

This is where Hoi An is 

Upon arriving in Hoi An at 6am I was tired and wanted to drop my bag off. There was a guy who said he would take me to three hotels for 5000 dong which is pretty reasonable. He took me to three and they were all expensive and every time I told him cheaper he said yes and took me to an expensive one. I ended up just leaving him and going next door to a place he took me, first night $7, next three $5 so that was good value.

Even though I was exhausted I decided to go for a walk around town to see what it was like. There were tailors everywhere, every corner and every second shop all begging you to come in and have a look. The streets are very narrow in the old part of town, about a car width wide and cobbled. The houses are very old terrace houses, and mainly wooden dating back to the 19th century. Hoi An is really a sleepy paradise, I really think I could live there for a while. The thin cute streets are all different, with different historic houses, different shops and art galleries. This truly is the town of Tailors and Lanterns, they are selling them everywhere too. As you walk through the town you move towards the focus being the river, where there are two story terraces that have been converted into restaurants overlooking the river.

I was getting quite hungry so heading to the market seemed like the best idea. I was surprised how expensive everything was here, it was truly catering to the tourist. I had some good noodles and met a Physio from Newtown who was travelling with her friend from NZ. They were good value and it was good to speak with some level headed people again. On the way back from the market it was getting hot, but i walked down a few more streets and went into a tailor. Being cheap and quite skeptical I decided to just bite the bullet and get one and see what it was like. I chose a grey colour first(with funky blue lining, you are on a winner there Greg) and the material was $70 including tailoring, you just chose the material at the price then they make it for you. I managed to get a shirt thrown in for $5 so that was gold. Choosing out of a book was pretty easy and the shirt was easy as well. They said come back in about 5 hours. I also bought the book “life of Pi” which is a great read. It was getting hot so it was time for a siesta.

Later that afternoon I hired a bicycle(thinking some manual biking would be good exercise) and rode to the beach about 5km. The beach was awesome, it is about 30km long with pristine sand and palm trees. The water was if anything a little to warm, but perfect for a swim for about two hours. It was time to go and check the suit, went back and it was a little tight here and there so they said some back tomorrow and we will fix it up. It was too easy. That night for dinner I just relaxed and ate some street food which was great. On the way home I noticed some Soccer on the TV in a tailor shop, so I ducked in and ended up watching the whole game with this guy, he was making me coffee and being quite the host.

The next day I hired a bike all day which was a better idea, although the bikes are not built for anyone tall, and can be quite punishing to get any speed up. I found some great noodles around the corner from my hotel, the centre of town was right so I went left and stumbled across it. I ended up having two bowls. They were so good I ended up going back there every day for breakfast, and the lady was introducing me to her family, quite funny really because she spoke no English at all. I did notice her attitude to me changed as time went on, at first she gave me dodgy pieces of chicken on top, but she was slowly getting better and better pieces and giving more as well, so I was pretty happy about that.

While I was cycling around town I met two Italian girls and we decided to go to the beach, it was to hot to move (the whole town seems to shut down in the middle of the day for about 3-4 hours everyone is asleep and they sleep anywhere. So I ended up reading on the beach for about two hours and a swim. While I was in the water there was one of the best sunsets I have ever seen. There was a huge cumulus cloud and the sun was almost below it with a great orange glow at the base of the cloud, however at the top there was a halo of light, looked magic. It is funny how you appreciate the simpler things after a while, something like that can make your day.

After the beach I went back to check on my suit and it was perfect and the tailor was there to see what he thought. He changed a few things, and I decided to get another one, another jacket and three more shirts. So all up two suits, a jacket, four shirts $220 all perfect fits. That night I met up with the Australian and New Zealand-er for dinner which was good, then had another early night. The nights were so hot that it was hard to get to sleep most of the time.

 This was my hot date

There is a place near Hoi An called My Son, it is an ancient temple city that was built from 2nd to the 10th Century. This was sold as Vietnam’s Anchor Wat, and there were meant to be amazing pagodas there and plenty to see. Upon getting a little lost on the bike on the way there, there was a walk up a hill about 1km up in stifling heat. This was more of an Archaeological site, where most of the temples where in total ruins or there was say a 5 foot wall and a pile of bricks left. This is fine if you are into that, but I was not really and thought it was a little bit of a hoax the way they sold it. Everyone I have met that has been there has said the same thing, so if you end up going along don’t waste to much time.

I would say to anyone going to Vietnam you have to go to Hoi An, great part of the world.

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Tags>> Beach Hoi An Motorbike My Son Suits Vietnam

Well after 6 days on a bike it was time for a rest. Also a time for spoiling myself, a two day craving for a snickers needed to be satisfied. I am not sure why i wanted one, but I did. I had a sleep in and a long breakfast which was good, it lasted about two hours with some reading. Then it was time to go and see some of the sites that I had not seen yet, mainly being the huge white Buddha statue, which was pretty amazing.  Hiring a bicycle seemed the way to go, get the legs moving again but also allow me to cover the distance i needed to. Half way there, I made a decision to taste as much street food as i could that afternoon before the bus.

 

My favourite thing were like rice hash browns, then they cut them down the middle and added some mince stuff which was great. After only getting one I followed that with three more. Then tasting various fruit that we don’t get in Australia, and some things that were like curry puffs but not curry. The Buddha and the main markets were pretty impressive. There was one weird thing was that there were gum trees all around this statue, nothing like home hey! The bus to Hoi An was great, leaving at 7pm and arriving at 6:30am I managed to get four seats which is a great way to travel, means you can really sleep.

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Tags>> Bicycle Nha Trang Vietnam