Day 55
The odd movement of the train and the sporadic stops means I wake up a few times in the night but on the whole I slept well in my duvet cocoon. At 5.30am our cabin buddies left us and as its light we both get up and play cards for a bit, watching the amazing scenery roll past. About 2 hours out from Hue, the train stops and as the announcements are all in Vietnamese, we have no idea why. After about an hour someone comes in and let's us know that's there been a crash between a train and a lorry ahead, the communication isn't great though and I don't know what that means for us, do we need to get off?
We start moving about 20 minutes later but at a crawling pace until we catch up with another train and we stop for another 15 or so minutes. This time, loads of people get on from the other train and our carriage is full of noisy, fast taking locals, all eating and shouting at each other. We only crawl this time for about 30 minutes the when we stop again and there still isn't any English announcements. I decide to start pestering the noisy family now and keep pointing at my ticket "Hue?" They shake their heads, we move again and this time we stop at a station. "Hue?" They shake their heads again, it must have got pretty irritating for them as about half an hour later one of them takes out there phone and uses Google translate to let us know that we are going to be heading a little further down the track, getting off the train on to a bus then on another train which will finally take us to Hue. This still takes another hour though and we amuse ourselves with cards.
The mini buses fill up quick and we wedge ourselves into our seats with all our bags on our laps just to make sure we get a seat. On route to the next train we see the crash which caused all this delay and it's pretty bad. I researched it later and although the train hit a big truck full of rocks and partly derailed, it was only the driver who died which was lucky and not so all at the same time.
The next train has to fit 3 trains in one and we get crammed into a cabin with a German couple, a Korean couple and a Dutch guy with a Vietnamese guide who was about our age. The Germans complain for the whole time, how it's so inefficient and poorly managed, I feel like suggesting he go on a Sunday service rail replacement in the UK and he see how well and quick this was all being managed. This trip is about an hour and half and finally we reach our destination, 8 hours late.
We ignore the hostel directions which are, as usual, crap and finally arrive at our hostel with the help of the trusty wifi. We dump our bags, grab some food as we haven't eaten since yesterday's bad Korean BBQ and then crash.
Day 56
We unsurprisingly sleep in after yesterday's madness but Ben's keen to explore Vietnam as so far we've been a little too ill to. On our walk around to find food last night we spotted a little bar called Allez Boo and thought we would pop in for breakfast. 2 pancakes, a croissant, 2 watermelon shakes, a cheese sandwich and a chocolate mouse later we are full and finally notice what is sitting next to us...a pool table! We resume battle (1-1) until we think we actually better start looking around the city of Hue and set off out.
Before we do anything cultural though Ben wants to find the swan pedaloles he spotted yesterday on our walk from the train station. A hot 15 minutes later he spies them but sadly for him (and luckily for me, I'm not great in little boats, no balance) there's no one manning them. It takes a good 10 minutes to pursuance him to leave them alone before we start across the river to the Imperial City.
Hue was the ancient capital and because of this has a beautiful stone Imperial City fort which we have been recommended to go look at. It getting really hot now and as I'm wearing my hair down, we are also getting a lot of attention which makes us feel a little edgy. We haven't heard of any thieves here but the heat makes you think strange things and we wander around a little paranoid. The buildings and grounds are beautiful and once inside you don't really have to worry about hawkers or touts, we wander past a pretty fish pond, we impersonate a dragon and generally take it all in but we aren't really into old buildings and we get a little bored after a while but as we head towards the exit we find a little hidden gem behind a tall stone wall, the Emperor's Garden. It was where he would go to read and I can see why, it was just so beautiful and peaceful. It was also empty, cool and full of lizards so we stayed and rested for a bit and Ben went off to take photos. I could have stayed forever if it wasn't for the heat.
We move on, grab and ice cream and we go back to the hostel to miss out the 3pm heat. Tonight we went back to Allez Boo, ate, played pool (scores at 18-6) and get really drunk on their happy hour, painfully strong cocktails. We walk home in the rain, we me unable to feel my face and I chat to Amy who tried not to laugh.
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