Unbelievable but true, this place is off the tourist trail, but it’s so beautiful here. A bustling city filled with smiling faces, a nice nightmarket, two caves filled with bats and buddhas and an old citadel located on a hilltop of karst offering a view over rice paddies, the city with it’s red roofs, the central lake, the caves entrances, and a lot more karst peaks! And the local hairdresser did a good job too!
Yum yum. Barbecued squid at a beach near Hoi An, escaping mass tourism. Squid is marinated in a mix of oil, garlic, Ginger and chili. Enjoy!!
Today turned out to be a great travel day! First we changed plans within a wink of the eyes and decided to get off the train two hours earlier in hue. Hue itself is a magical place filled with palaces, tree fringed lanes perfect to ride a bike, and above all, a magical citadel or dare i say a nice attempt to copy beijings forbidden city. A large walled city within the city centre filled with palaces. Just leaving the city limits we visited the impressive Thien Mu pagoda while the sun is seriously attempting to burn our skin off. Cycling along the Song Huong, or Perfume River, we see the sky turning dark grey rapidly. still eager to visit to Minh Mang Tomb, we encounter a road block. Hence, we are forced to cross the river in a not so modern looking floating vehicle. After crossing the river our new destination is Khai Dinh Tomb. The sky is turning black now. Road signs are missing, but the mouth is working, so we ask around for directions. At the time heaven is about to take a serious piss on us, we meet Dung, a very friendly man, 58 years of age, father of five, knows strangely quite a lot Dutch including the kids song ‘vader jacob’. We ask him for directions, which he replies with follow me. While the first liters of water are wetting the streets, he brings us to his home in the village Chau Chu. His home is modern, safe for hurricanes, his garden is filled with chickens, roosters and pineapples. We talk with him about the Dutch royal family, he adores maxima, feeds us pineapples and noodles soups and by the time it’s dry again he shows us the short cut way to the tombs of Khai Ding and Tu Duc, waiting for us while we explore these two totally different but both royal majestically manmade creations to honour the dead Vietnamese emperors. The first tomb is fully made of stone, being very gothic/bombastic, build on a hill, the latter situated in a green area spread around forrest and filled with lakes with a lot of wooden buildings filling the area. By the time it’s getting dark he shows us the way home, speeding across city traffic, downhill passing by motorised vehicles.
Relaxing with favourite streetside snackie Hanoi beer, noodle soup and shrimps after day of contrasts: first relaxing in Lenin parc and the French quarter, then saw a happy water puppet theatre show and later confronted by the terror of hoa loa prison.
Long day of walking in humid Hanoi getting lost and finding ourselves is great fun, resulting in upcoming blisters. A day with city lakes, quiet parcs, pagodas, ancient temples, motorcycle fumes, smiling kids, noodle soups, bapaos, fried vietnames veggie croquettes, cheap but tasty Beers
