Hue

When we came to Hue in November 2005, it was just a day trip from Hoi An. We only really knew about the Citadel, so that was our lone mission. That, plus lunch. It was steamy hot and rainy, and we got there and bought umbrellas (still have one of them) and toured the Citadel. It was very Citadel-y. We are only now really able to talk about the lunch that Marc had, which we think was a dragonfly in some kind of rice sludge. Really, he couldn't even broach the topic for years and years. That was our entire experience of Hue. Still, since we'd given it such a short effort last time, we thought we'd spend a bit more time this trip, probably the last time we'd come to Hue.

Our little hotel was absolutely charming and wonderful, and located very well -- walking distance to the big market, a longer walk to the Citadel, and surrounded by various things to see and places to eat. When we checked in, completely shattered by the long trip (NYC to Hong Kong to Danang and then a 2-something-hour drive to Hue), I really just wanted to get out of my clothes and take a little rest, maybe a shower, and transition myself and mind to Vietnam. My hair was in braids, and all fuzzed out, my face was creased and exhausted, and my clothes looked exactly like I'd slept in them. In the elevator going up to our room, we were accompanied by a young woman from the front desk, and a young man who carried our bags. He was glancing sideways at me and then he spoke to her in Vietnamese. She smiled and then looked at me and said, "He said your hair is cute and you are cute. And your name is cute too." And from then on, every single time I saw her she greeted me by name. (Marc didn't get the same name treatment.) It was actually the perfect kick-off to our experience with Hotel LaPerle: very warm and friendly staff, personalized care, and awareness and tending to whatever we might need. The room was $28/night, with a big, endless free breakfast, and we have a sense that it'll be the best room of our whole trip, and perhaps the best breakfast, too.

So the first day we wandered over to the Citadel, imagining that we probably wouldn't go in again -- and so we didn't, but mainly because the place was overrun with large tour groups. It was muggy and kind of unpleasant, thick air hanging, white skies, so we drifted back to our hotel for a wee rest. In the neighborhood of our hotel was a gigantic bar called the DMZ Zone, with everything painted in military camo, bombs hanging on the front, and the awning painted with "the McNamara line." We were horrified, but we are very upset still by what the US did to Vietnam, so it's a painful thing to experience. The bar was always filled with Vietnamese and other Asian people, and I don't think we ever saw Americans there.

As always, Marc had identified a restaurant nearby for dinner our first night, and it was just a few steps away from our hotel, but it looked worse than the reviews suggested, so he rambled around and found a better-looking one a short walk away. We had the set menu, meh, not awful but not memorable.

The next day, after sleeping for a solid 10 hours, we were ready to roll. We went to the big market, which is our main mission everywhere we go, in search of a local breakfast. It was too muggy for me to enjoy a bowl of hot pho, but Marc loved it, and we both loved sitting there among Vietnamese women doing their thing, smiling at us -- sometimes kindly, sometimes with humor -- and tickled when I showed them the translation for "delicious" in my app. The woman I showed it to laughed, and shouted at the large group of women nearby. They all laughed, and one woman came over to see what Marc was eating, and then she did a little smiling nod. That's right, it's good.

Our big experience for that day was a walk to the Thien Mu Pagoda, which was much farther than we anticipated, and Marc's flip-flop was wearing a hole in his skin, so we finally grabbed a taxi for the final push. It was a beautiful place, with views overlooking the Perfume River and the mountains that surround the hilltop. It's not uncommon for places like this to have a car or two on display; one of the many Ho Chi Minh museums has a number of his cars. Still, I wasn't prepared for the reason for this particular car to be on display: it was driven to Saigon by a monk who then sat down and burned himself to death to protest the president's treatment and abuse of Buddhists. Vietnamese monks are serious and put their beliefs on the front lines.

The little restaurant we ate at our final night in Hue -- Golden Rice -- looked kind of sad and worn-out, but looks were so deceiving, because it was one of the very best meals we've ever had, anywhere. I got a green mango salad with shrimp and sauteed tofu with chili and lemongrass, and Marc got some kind of eggplant dish with a sauce of lemongrass and ginger, and fried shrimp sitting on some kind of crispy bits of fried bread crumbs maybe, and bits of lemongrass, all kinds of crispy stuff that was so delicious I was stealing spoonfuls to put on my rice, too. Every dish was just perfect, and all four were completely distinct. Even the rice was spectacular, and better than most. We sacked out early, as we always do at the beginning of these trips, with full bellies and tired legs.

We had a relatively early pick-up the next morning for our drive to Hoi An, and the driver was just the kind of English-speaker I prefer. He knew some, but not much, so we were able to sit in silence or talk to each other without a lot of pressure of conversation with him. Still, he pointed out all kinds of interesting things in Hue, like the high school (and Ho Chi Minh attended there for two years in his youth), and various temples and pagodas. On the way out, he drove us to one of the royal tombs, but I'll talk about that in the next post.

At the end of it, I came away with a real appreciation for Hue. It's a charming city, but mainly my sense of it is based on the warmth and friendliness of the people -- the women, mostly. Every single encounter was a pleasure, and that's what I'll remember when I think of our time there.