Today we left Hoi An to travel to Hue via the Hai Van Pass. We had hired a car and driver to take us there with a few stops along the way. Our first stop of the day was Marble Mountain, which is a group of five marble and limestone hills. All of the mountains have cave entrances and several buddhist sanctuaries, pagodas and monuments. It was a long climb up to the many levels of the mountain/hill, and we were yet again sweaty messes by the end (this is now becoming a regular occurrence!) but it was definitely worth the effort.
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| One of the pagodas |
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| Inside one of the caves |
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| One of the temples at Marble Mountain |
Our driver parked at one of the many marble gift shops and the ladies there said 'please come and look at our shop when you are finished'. As soon as we had left Marble Mountain one of the shop ladies was waiting for us and so we thought we would have a look round - something caught my eye and I asked how much - it was way too expensive so the haggling began......I knew how much I wanted to spend and I wouldn't budge from that and we tried to walk away a few times and in the end we got it at the price we wanted. Pleased with ourselves we left the shop, with the lady telling us where our driver had parked. When we got to the car a very stroppy lady came up to us and said, pointing at our purchase, I thought you were going to come to my shop - now we are pretty sure this is a scam as the lady we met earlier was the one we spoke to when we parked up and they try and guilt you in to making another purchase with this ruse but we just walked away. I was pretty annoyed that the driver had put us in that position in the first place but after a moan in the car we were over it!
We drove along the Hai Van Pass (which means "ocean cloud pass"), which is a 21 km long mountain pass with lots of twists and turns! I am sure the views are pretty amazing but unfortunately it was a hazy day and, by the time we got to the top, the cloud and mist meant we couldn't see anything! However we did get out and have a look around the bunkers left from the Vietnam war and the little market there.
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| The misty Hai Van pass! |
Our last stop before our final destination was Lang Co Beach.
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| Lang Co Beach |
5 hours after leaving Hoi An we finally arrived in Hue. Our hotel is down a small alleyway in the middle of Hue - it is by far our cheapest hotel at £24 a night and that includes breakfast - bargain!
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| Not bad for £24 a night! |
We had a walk around Hue to get our bearings and, to be honest, it was a bit of a disappointment - after the character of Hanoi, and the quaintness of Hoi An, Hue seems to be quite a non descript city! However, hopefully things will improve as we have plans to view the citadel and 3 of the main tombs of the Nguyen emperors that reigned in Hue from 1802 until 1945 over the next two days. I know what you are thinking, visiting tombs sounds a bit morbid but the emperors actually used these places for relaxation and entertain guests when they were alive so they are more than just a tomb!
In the evening we went to a restaurant that is highly rated on trip advisor - it was down a dark alley which we would never of gone down if we hadn't been looking for it! We wanted to try the local specialities - we shared a starter of Bahn Beo which is small, circular rice flour crepes topped with minced shrimp, fried shallots and crispy pork crackling - they were ok but we wouldn't have them again. For our main meal we both had the local chicken curry which was delicious.
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| Bahn Beo - that is crackling in the middle! |
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| Delicious curry! |
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