Day 6 - One great day in Hue (hway)

Without a shadow of a doubt, this day was the best day of our entire 1 year voyage. I think i can speak for Andrea too on this one. We started the morning with a walk to the Perfume River for a dragon boat cruise along it. Leaving the pagoda and continuing our cruise along the river we came across the river police which we had to go and see to pay them some money to pass ! The locals told us that if you don't pass then they'll board your boat and find loads of stuff wrong with it. The boats that the police use look like the patrol boats in Apocalypse Now, judging by the age of them too. Leaving the police, we stopped at the Thien Mu Pagoda and buddist temple which is one of the most famous in Vietnam apparently. We got to watch the very young (around 10 years old) buddists training to be monks. They had a school lessons on writing in Chinese script and the older ones were preparing lunch for the monks. The old monks looked very peaceful and happy with life, but we all know our kung fu movies, turn your back on them and they'll be "flippin' out" at some ninjas whilst you're not watching and missing all the excitement.

Talking of film, they have a soap opera here that is quite good, you can pretty much guarantee that at least 2 people will be killed dramatically in every episode! Beats benders and corrie hands down for sheer drama.

Back to the day, we then got back onto the boat to travel further up the river only to find that the police had captured two sampans with dodgy taillights or something ;) They escorted them to the banks where some other police were waiting for them. Then without knowing it they then sped up to us and attached themselves to the back of our boat for cover ! The police were just wandering around the back of our boat. hehehe. I think the driver was pretty nervous about the whole affair. We then drove into the river bank in the country and went up the footpath where some motorbikes and drivers were waiting for us.

They drove us to some royal tomb (i'll fill in where exactly when i remember) which was really good, again it all looked ancient but in fact was from the 1800s ! It had this great lake that was filled with lotus leaves and flowers, admiring the view we then noticed a small boy wading through and picking the flowers. He then came towards us and tried to sell them to us, the guide took two for everyone to sniff and told the lad to "bugger off" in Vietnamese. The tomb was good, but it was getting up to midday so the guide would talk about stuff whilst in the shade then we'll all rush out into the sun to get closer and take photos then quickly back to the shade again. hehehe. Leaving the tomb we then hit the road again with our moped army to go to a place that made incense. They gave a demonstration on how to do it and Andrea had to then have a go. She did very well :) We then the road again and headed out towards a buddist nunnery. The guys on the bikes really did take us down all the back streets and country paths in the area.

The nunnery was going to be our place for lunch. Being buddists it was all vegitarian but great food. I was very surreal being waited on by buddist nuns and after the meal they even gave us pillows so that we could have a siesta in their sleeping area. Graciously leaving the nunnery, we then headed towards American Bunker Hill which had amazing views of the perfume river, the mountains to the west where the ho-chi-minh trail resided and also Hamburger Hill was visible. The bunkers were well, just bits of concrete really, what's really impressive is that the bomb holes and trenches that were dug around the bunkers were still present, there was even bullet holes in the bunkers.

We left here and then headed for the to the Tiger Arena (looks old but not again) where tigers and elephants fought to the death for the emperors pleasure. It was kind of a small amphitheater with scratch marks in the masonry and everything, ew.

Leaving here we went down more back streets Hue and ended up at a ladies house where she made the Chinese conical hats, hers are considered the best as you can hold them to the sun and you'll see a bunch of shadows that tell a story. She gave us a demonstration on how she makes the hats, what made it more impressive was that she only had one arm. The local hat making businesses weren't interested in a one handed hat maker so she thought blow it i'll start my own company, and now she makes the best ones in Vietnam...good for her.

Going on the road again we left to head for the Thanh Toan Bridge, which in itself was amazing but the fact that the village also had a fortune teller made it even better ! The old lady must of been in her 80's and had a very wrinkled and wise looking face. She came wandering to the bridge when she heard our mopeds approach, i think she heard the "ker ching" of till sounds. She was in a traditional vietnamese dress with one of those conical hats. I went first and then Andrea, and we were very careful about her seeing us together before our readings. My reading said that I used to be in a relationship with an older girl but "she no good", her words, she also knew other stuff about my past. Oh, she said i was handsome but it felt more like when your gran says your handsome..hehehe. Now for the future, she said that within in 5 years i'll be rich and living in a big house (looking forward to that one), also that the girl i'm with at the moment is the one :) and that i'll (notice the me bit here) have 5 children...yup you read that right, 5 ! Andreas reading kinda went like this, mumbo jumbo about the past, we really cant elaborate any more 'cause Andrea wasn't listening to her on that bit, about the future...she said that she works very hard and will earn a lot of money, also Andrea will have 3 children. So it looks like i'm gonna have to have a couple of love children to make the fortune come true. It was all a bit of fun really and the old lady was very sweet and full of character.

That was pretty much the end of the day, but what i haven't mentioned about was the traveling in between the locations and how cool it was. It was a mixture of countryside and urban back streets, we flew past giant buddist tombs, bomb craters, paddy fields, driving through roads covered in straw and rice, children running out of there homes waving and shouting "hello", and drive by hi-fives with some of the braver kids. The best thing was watching the people in the paddy fields harvesting the rice and bringing it in to the mobile threshers on the road, the stalks that weren't needed were just burnt there and then on the road. With traffic going past and dodging these fires, including our moped convoy on a few occasions.

The last journey back to the hotel ended in a tropical storm when it started all the drivers pulled over and gave their passengers raincoats, i was given this great big poncho which kept me completely dry. Andrea turned down her drivers offer of a raincoat saying, don't worry i have one here and pulled out the raincoat that my sister lent her. The raincoat, whilst waterproof in a drizzle, definitely wasn't up to a tropical storm and on arriving at the hotel Andrea proceeded to show everyone just how soaking she was...hehehehe. Fantastic day one to remember!