February 15 Hue

My butt is so sore and I am stiff all over.  I feel as if I have horseback riding all day instead of sitting on the back of a motorcycle for 5.5 hours.  After a less than satisfactory night's sleep I am also very tired.  We leave the hotel at 7:00 in the morning to catch the plane to Hanoi so it will be a short night.

Today was a major improvement over yesterday save for the weather which remained extremely hot and humid.  Thank heaven for the times on the motorcycle that gave my drenched shirt a chance to dry just  a little.  We began the day with a 30 minute boat ride on the Perfume River so named we were told for the many flowers growing along the banks.  No such flowers were in evidence today.  Perhaps they had all been harvested for sale in the markets in honour of "Happy New Year Day".  Throughout the duration of the trip some of the women were trying on pajamas, pair after pair after pair and then going back and buying the pair with which they started.  Reasonable prices at between $10 and $12.

Next stop was the "Happy Lady" pagoda.  It appeared quite interesting from the outside but that is all I saw and no one who went in made any comments about it.

After the viewing we mounted the fifteen motorcycles for the trip to the Emperor's Tomb.  I am sure that there was an easy way to get there but the drivers took us along narrow streets, normal roads, back alleys and bumpy dirt paths through the jungle.  Going over one bridge I was sure we were going to tip over because he kept swaying back and forth and I couldn't anticipate which way he was going to lean.  I didn't see a whole lot of the tomb area because it was simply too uncomfortable in the heat so I remained outside talking with two of the Australian blokes.

After another tailbone jarring ride we arrived at the Royal Arena where elephants used to battle tigers to provide entertainment for the Emperor.  The tigers were de-clawed and so the elephants, according to the Emperor's wishes, almost always won.  There wasn't much to see except the structure itself and the gates where the tigers and elephants entered the arena.

We had a vegetarian lunch, consisting of two varieties of spring rolls, rice, deep fried mushrooms, green beans, pumpkin soup, pomerello, tofu, potato chips and a few other things, at a Buddhist pagoda.  It was very good and quite cheap at 50,000 dong ($3.13).  Breakfast earlier was two varieties of fried noodles, sourdough bread, tomatoes and cucumbers.  Dinner was soup and salad.  Too much coriander in the soup and then I could only eat 1/4 of the salad.  Should have skipped dinner.

Following lunch it was a long bum numbing ride to to a covered where we sat in the shade and rested until some feeling returned.  When I dismounted form the motorcycle I told the driver that my butt was sore and he asked me if I wanted a massage.  Needless to say I declined that offer.  LOL

Next on the list was a visit to a small local market that was swarming with people, bicycles and motorcycles.  The heat, the crowd and the noise was too much for most of us so we didn't stay very long.  We had to wait a while for one of the motorcycles, the one Vu was driving, was having mechanical difficulties.  While waiting I took a photo of a little girl who seemed quite fascinated with me for some reason.  Her father was sitting on his motorcycle holding a younger daughter so I also took a picture of them.  When I took the camera over to show him the shot the younger girl began to cry and hid from me so I backed off quickly.

After a very brief stop at a fishing village we headed back to the hotel and ran straight into traffic the likes of which we hadn't seen since we left Saigon.  It was absolutely incredible and the photos barely do the situation justice.  In addition there throngs of people along both sides of the street.  It was interesting to watch my driver to see how he maneuvered through the torrent of vehicles.  It is equally amazing to see how common courtesy and organized chaos can actually work well.

Oh yes, somewhere along the way today we stopped at a workshop where they make incense sticks and conical hats.  Much to my surprise I learned that the hats are not named for their shape but rather from the fact that they are made of the leaves of the conical tree.  Some of the hats actually have a middle layer so that when you hold the hat up to the light you can see shapes of normal life activities and some poetry (hence they are called poem hats).

When we arrived at the hotel it was time to pay the drivers.  Considering how far we traveled and the fact that we were out for 5.5 hours I thought $10.00 (160,000 dong) more than a reasonable price so I gave my driver a good tip as well.  Throughout the trip he told me so often that he was a good driver that I began to wonder if he was trying to convince me or himself.  Other than having a hard seat and, by far, the slowest machine of the lot he did a pretty good job.

All in all I enjoyed the day and was glad that I decided to go rather than trying to make arrangements for myself.

PS  Just remembered that I learned a man's haircut here costs 10,000 dong ($0.63)!  Sure beats the $23.00 I pay at home.