MissTtravels

Day 8

The day we got to Hue…

We left Hoi An at about 8.30 and travelled up the coast past Da Nang, with its famous China Beach. Lots of resorts. We stopped briefly to see the Dragon Bridge.

The coastline is quite pretty.

We ascended a high mountain pass on a very windy road, which occasionally gave us a great view of the train line from Hanoi to Saigon. Tuyet gave us lots of information about the history of Vietnam along the way, as we passed sites that were related to Ho Chi Minh and the wars.

We stopped at a little village called Lang Co. Lots of fishing boats and oyster farming. I should note that it has been raining most of the day.

Eventually we arrived in a soggy Hue. Hue was the Imperial capital of Vietnam from 1802 to 1945, and contains the Imperial Citadel. We visited the Citadel, a moated fortress and various palaces, in the pouring rain. Tuyet guided us through, filling in more historical details as we went.

I think the most impressive thing amongst it all was the nine bronze urns, representing Vietnam and its peoples.

The complex was impressive and would be really pretty on a good day. The things we learnt helped fill in some of the details of the transition from Imperial rule to the French Occupation, and also to explain the longstanding influence of the Chinese in Vietnam.

We arrived at our hotel drowned rats.