The imperial city

Our hotel in Hue is located on the shoe district. Whenever we go out, I (Leia) am distracted by the large shoe emporiums and Guy feels I am either ignoring him more than usual, or looking his way much more than usual, depending on which side of me he's standing.

Breakfast in this hotel is very nice, they have the fruit slices and fruit juices in the buffet and a pretty large a la carte selection of things to order. Guy had eggs, bacon, a pancake and Bun Bo Hue - the local version of beef Pho soup (after a long discussion with the waiters about the presence of tomatoes in it), and I had a lot of fruit, poached eggs and a banana pancake. We both enjoyed the fruit juices very much.

After this large breakfast we left our laundry at the hotel reception. The night before we found a nearby place that offers laundry service for 20,000 dong per kilo, which was half the hotel's rate. The receptionist saw we were on our way out with the laundry and offered to match the rate for our convenience and we agreed.

We set out to the imperial citadel, across a modern suspension bridge over the Perfumed River. Because of its central location, Hue was the residence of the kings of the Nguyen dynasty, which was the last dynasty to rule Vietnam, up until the first half of the 20th century. The imperial citadel contains the Purple Forbidden city, which is a Vietnamese version of the Chinese Forbidden City from Beijing. It was interesting to see and compare, since we visited both on this trip. The imperial city was in much worse condition than its Chinese counterpart. It has suffered natural disasters and wars. Most of its buildings are missing. It is still very impressive to see.

We chose a very bad time to come there, since it was around noon on a very hot day. We sweated a lot. None of the imperial buildings had AC, even the ones that have been rebuilt. How did those emperors live!? The grounds are still pretty impressive, we got to see the stage and garden, the moat around the city and some residences... as well as many empty lots with only the foundations still there. The ticket prices go towards rebuilding the structures.

From the imperial city there is an electric car service that takes the visitors to the relics museum, which is not far, but we were still thankful for the opportunity to take a nice ride on this day rather than walking. In the museum we had to take our shoes off, like we were entering someone's house. The relics included dishes, clothes, jewelry and games from the Nguyen dynasty. It was interesting to see how the royal family had lived.

When we were leaving the museum, a rickshaw driving tour guide stopped us and was very convincing in his attempts to get us to tour the old city with him, but not convincing enough. He spoke very good English and showed us his book of recommendations. We were, unfortunately, too hot (Guy) and sunburnt (Leia) to go on further tours, so we continued on our way towards the hotel. On our way we bought some lychees, sunscreen, water, and ice cream bars. Guy found me an especially tasty and cheap ice cream- it was strawberry vanilla with nuts. We also booked our ride to Hoi An tomorrow and the homestay there.

We sat in a nicely decorated coffee place for a while and then had lunch in the restaurant where we saw our Swedish acquaintances the previous night. It was really very good and cheap food. When we reentered the hotel, the staff brought out juice for us and two American guys who came in when we did.

We went out again to get dinner in a restaurant serving local specialties. We ordered banh beo, which are small rice cakes topped with dried shrimp and other crackly things, served in many little bowls on a large tray. We also ordered fresh spring rolls with pork and shrimp, crispy Banh Khoai (a rice crepe with shrimp and pork) and some steamed banana leave packages filled with whole shrimp and tapioca dough, which we left behind. A Nguyen emperor imported all the best chefs of Vietnam to Hue and commanded them to come up with new dishes, so it has a lot of unique cuisine which is considered among the best in Vietnam.

After dinner we went to the restaurant district to check out an art gallery, where the artist paints on rice paper in the traditional way. Then we walked through the disappointing night market and then back to the hotel.

In the hotel we picked up our laundry in the reception. When we were unpacking it, I noticed a part of my bathing suit was missing. After some moping I went down to the reception, who contacted the laundry service, who in their turn delivered it back, and some 15 minutes later it was back in the room. I did my happy dance.