I arrive in the town of Hoi Ann this morning. I was scheduled to stop here, but one of the painful parts of traveling consists of not having the ability to see everything. I think it is better to have more time in certain areas than to have a short time and glance at many areas quickly. Hoi Ann was a casualty of this philosophy of travel and I decided to forge ahead to the next stop on my itinerary, which was the ancient city of Hue pronounced almost like way. I had to wait over an hour for the bus to leave, so I wandered the streets for awhile and grabbed myself some Pho for breakfast.
I arrived in Hue in the afternoon and I was exhausted. The bus when it arrives in a new town takes you around to certain hotels that it has deals with and being very tired I grabbed the first hotel. It was called the Binh Duong II and it had hot water, TV with CNN, and a great view of the city for a bargain price of 7$. The view of the city is great. The French influence is really prevalent here, especially in regards to the architecture. Looking out the window it seems more like a Parisian neighborhood or the French Quarter of New Orleans. Only problem was it was on the sixth floor with no elevator. They helped me with my bags and I got in my room and collapsed on the bed. Before I nodded off, I took an inventory of my things and realized I had forgot my hat on the bus.
My hat cost me 3$ in Chiang Mai, but I had become kind of attached to it for sentimental reasons. I had bought this hat when I was with Michelle. I ran down the stairs to see if they could call the bus company at the front desk and may be the bus had not left yet. A guy from the hotel greeted me with a big smile. I told him I had left my hat on the bus. I asked if we could call the bus and ask that they drop it off at a travel agency, and I could get it later. He got a serious look on his face, and he said, “come with me.”
I got on his moto and we were on a madcap dash around the streets of Hue looking for the bus with my hat. We stopped at a couple of travel agencies and he yelled something in Vietnamese to the girls behind the desk. They pointed and we took off again. Finally we found the bus stopped in front of a hotel. He asked the hotel clerk and the clerk said the driver is sleeping. He said that I could come back at 5pm. I said ok, but first let me make sure it is in there. I tried to look through the dusty windows to see my hat. I got to the door side of the bus and realized it only had one door. The bus I was in had a door near the driver and also a door in the middle of the bus. Just at this same moment my driver was informed that it was not the bus. I told him, “this is not the bus,” and shook his head in agreement.
He pointed to the back seat and we were off again. We stopped at another travel agency and he yelled at the girls in Vietnamese. They replied in Vietnamese and pointed to a seat. He told me the bus would be here shortly and we could wait. Five minutes later the bus arrived and I retrieved my beloved I am a tourist geek hat. He took me back to the hotel. I was expecting him to pander for money, and I was going to give him some anyway, but he did not. I gave him 2$, and he at first genuinely refused, but I insisted and he thanked me. 2$ was almost more than the hat, but he deserved it for such a helpful attitude.
Hue is really a laid back city. It is pretty far north and for the first time on my trip it is cool. For the first time on the trip I am taking some long sleeve shirts out of my pack. I welcome this as it feels great to walk more than a block without being drenched in sweat.
I was going to take a nap because I just got off a twenty hour all night bus trip, but the frantic search for the hat woke me up. Instead of a nap I decide to check out the highlight of Hue, which is the ruins of the Nguyen dynasty. It takes me about twenty minutes to get to the Forbidden City. Unfortunately, a lot of this had been ruined by war time bombing, but it was still nice. It is not as spectacular as Angkor. It is easy to get spoiled when you travel and see things as awesome as Angkor. The imperial city is huge and completely surrounded by a moat. It was very peaceful walking around these ruins. There were quite a few tourists, but the place was so huge that everyone was quite spread out.
I returned to the hotel, had some Pho for dinner. I love the versatility of this soup. It can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, brunch, dinner, snack, late night snack, and even a drunk before you crash at 3am snack. I booked a tour for the next morning on the Perfume River and went to sleep.
