I don’t have much to say about Hue, other than it sounds like “whey” and not “hue” as in a color. It was a pleasant place to walk around with wide tree-lined avenues, big colonial-style buildings, and these pink lotus lanterns that we saw here and there in celebration of Vesak Day. Equally magnificent, though contrasting the colonial simplicity with imperial decor was the old walled royal city. Here’s a couple of my favorite details:

Hue has been a really quick stop on our march northwards. We probably would’ve spent longer here, but we’re trying to get to Hanoi asap to get our Chinese visa in order. We arrived yesterday afternoon and spent the rest of the day exploring the town a bit. There were a ton of motorbikes like everywhere in Vietnam, but for a large city it seemed pretty quiet. Despite not having the quaint colonial atmosphere of Hoi An, it was a pleasant place to walk around. The buildings and architecture were plain and unattractive, but the streets and trees were decorated with lanterns. Decorations adorned the city and buildings in anticipation of a holiday, although I never quite got what it was about. We walked down to the small Contemporary Arts Museum. It was closed for the holiday, but we found a guard and paid him a little bit to let us in. It was just a small little gallery of just a couple rooms, but Joylani thought it was okay. We searched around for food for awhile until we decided to just eat at the next place we saw. So we sweatily walked into a local place on a sidestreet. Most the tables were occupied by groups of men around tables full of empty beer bottles. The waitresses giggled and urged each other to take our order. Finally one of them was pressured into approaching the foreigners and she took our order, which was accomplished by randomly mispronouncing two random menu items (since the entire menu was in Viet). Luckily, we ended up with a plate full of vegetables and another of pork. After we got some rice, it turned out to be a pretty good meal. I felt pretty fortunate having not known what we were ordering. On a sidenote, Vietnamese speak less English than most places we’ve gone. On top of that, I think their English is among the worst we’ve heard. On the other hand, I’ve pronounced some things that I’ve read or heard and they cannot understand me at all. Something about the sounds, tones, and inflections of English and Vietnamese language make them extremely different and difficult for a speaker of one to learn/speak the other and vice versa.

We got up pretty early this morning and headed to the walled citadel across the river from our hotel. Inside the citadel was another moat and walled fortress, known as the Imperial City. It is the main attraction in Hue and for good reason. The old stone walls and ornate but imposing wood gate was cool. Inside was different from anything we’ve seen on this trip. Architecturally and stylistically, it became clear that we’ve moved into the Chinese sphere of influence. The old writing was in Chinese characters and the architecture and gardens resembled East Asian style much more than Thai or Khmer influences. There wasn’t anything that really stood out, but it was enjoyable walking within the large stone walls, gardens, and old wooden houses and halls. Its nice to have a little change of scenery as we begin moving out of SEA into East Asia. After the Imperial City, it was back to hotel to pack-up. Now we’re just killing some time until our bus to Hanoi tonight. I dislike rushing through places and Hue was a rush, but we saw the main attraction and explored about as much of the town as we probably would’ve if we had stayed for a few days.

The past couple days in Hoi An, an old colonial town, have been a refreshing change of scenery. It’s a pretty touristy place, but its our first venture outside a Vietnamese city or beach. It was once a port town, sitting on the banks of a large river. It had a large population of Japanese and Chinese merchants, although most of the Japanese left in the eighteenth century when the shogun banned Japanese from traveling abroad. Nonetheless, a Japanese covered bridge is a main attraction and the town adopted it as its logo. If a small bridge is one of the main tourist attractions, you can probably understand how it took us only a couple hours to see everything of note in town. But besides the old Chinese clan houses and one-room “museums,” it was interesting to stroll through the old town with its colonial-Chinese architecture. There really isn’t much to do in Hoi An, but take in the character of the old town. Hoi An is also known as the silk and tailoring capitol of Vietnam, so we did take some time to have some clothes made. Two shirts and a pair of shoes for me and five shirts and a blazer for Joylani, all custom made, all for 102 USD. Joylani also took a cooking class, so hopefully I’ll be able to continue eating Vietnamese food once we get home. In my posts, I really want to focus more on the places rather than our activities, but I’m finding it difficult. I mean all the places we’ve been in Vietnam have had their interesting parts, but they’re just not very exciting places.

Yesterday we had some good pho for lunch along with some crispy [not overly drenched in oil] spring rolls. I knew I had found the place. After finishing up our tasty meal, Matt and I wandered to the back of the restaurant to see if they would do a cooking class. While I don’t think they normally, if ever, do such classes, the staff (a mother and son) agreed. Same time, same place tomorrow.

And so this afternoon I arrived, ready to cook for the first time in almost a year. Only I didn’t actually end up doing any cooking, not even a little chopping. But I was ok with that as my stomach was feeling a little funny from having eaten a kilo of mangosteens just an hour before (I thought I would need something to tide myself over before I was able to eat the food from “class”). It was more like standing in a cooking show. The son translated with stuttering English, which, though basic, was sufficient. Every now and then I would ask a question to clarify the name of an ingredient or how long to do this or that, but mostly I just watched. The woman did the chopping and cooking. On the menu was: pork and shrimp spring rolls, steamed noodles with fish, and pho bo (Matt’s request).

The spring rolls came first; I was horrified when the woman sampled the raw pork spring-roll mixture, and glad that when she held it up to me it was only for me to smell it. After the spring rolls, I don’t think I actually learned too much that a cookbook couldn’t have taught me, but the experience was interesting nonetheless. And I guess I came away with a few new bits of knowledge. One of which is that “seasoning” consists of liberally sprinkled amounts of msg. More unsettling than surprising, as I had my suspicions about the food we’ve been eating, but still, what’s wrong with plain old salt? My favorite part was just watching the mother and son interact as they prepared the food in front of me, the son asking his mom questions as he translated a little bit here and there. Oh, and the eating part wasn’t so bad either–Matt came at the end and we stuffed ourselves on a big feast of all the food.

Several times in our travels throughout SEA, we’ve come across the remnants of the Champa civilization. Today we visited My Son, which are the most famous Champa ruins in Vietnam. The UNESCO-listed site consisted of several red-brick temples in about a dozen groups. Grass and weeds were growing out of the temples and some were leaning so heavily, I thought they were about to topple over. Unfortunately, many of the best preserved statues and artwork had been removed and taken to the National Museum in Hanoi. So we settled for crome-plated plaques here and there, which essentially said, “This [description of piece] was removed and is now kept in the National Museum in Hanoi, artifact number ….” Besides being stripped of its best art, I was disappointed with our trip to the temples for a few other reasons. One, it was really crowded with tour groups and tourists. Two, the temples just weren’t very impressive. Perhaps this is a bit unfair, because we’ve seen awesome Champa ruins in Lao and Cambodia and the impressive ruins of Indianized kingdoms from Thailand to Indonesia. And I still cannot figure out why civilizations in the hottest climates built all the great temples of the world. So much for the myth that tropical people are lazy. It was an interesting side trip, but walking around mediocre, stripped down My Son in the humid midday heat won’t make our highlights list.

Bike inside one of the old Hoi An family houses.

Hoi An market

Gorilla arms. While not what every girl wants to be called, it is a somewhat accurate description of my gangly limbs. Such arms attached to a tall and thin body make it hard to find dress clothes that fit right. If the torso fits, I’m practically baring my midriff and full-length sleeves become ¾ sleeves. I suppose everyone, gorilla arms or not, has trouble with this and that in terms of clothes fitting properly. In comes the tailor. And those are quite plentiful in Hoi An, where its easier to find a cloth shop than a bowl of pho. So I got a shirt made yesterday to see how it would turn out, and then today I bought four more…and a blazer. Matt placed an order for two shirts (we had to show the seamstress a pre-trip photo of him before she understood that she really did need to add a few inches to his current measurements) and a custom pair of leather shoes. We definitely succumbed to the custom-made craze that permeates the air in Hoi An. All of our new duds will all be ready to pick up by tomorrow afternoon. Maybe we could have found a cheaper place in the city or somewhere else, but frankly, I just tell myself that it’s cheaper than at home. My gorilla arms will hence forth be covered by sleeves that fit.

It was gloomy all day. Despite the rain, we decided to go for a walk before our 12 bus ride. We passed by this street stall selling something that looked like rice or some sort of spring roll that had been cooked in a banana leaf. I wasn’t really sure what it was though, but decided to try it. We walked back to the stall and I asked what it was. She was unwrapping the food from slightly charred banana leaves. “Bananas,” the woman replied. Rice seemed to be a part of the dish as well. Can’t go wrong there. Matt and I took a seat, waiting for our banana and rice. The stall consisted of a small table housing the ingredients with a large pot warming over a coal bbq. Short tables accompanied by ever shorter stools were placed nearby. To our surprise and delight, the woman lifted the lid off the pot to reveal a milky coconut and tapioca sauce which she liberally pour over the slices of grilled banana and rice. We each took a spoonful of the warm dessert. It tasted wonderful. The banana was soft and sweet, complemented by the crispy stickiness of the grilled glutinous rice, and the warm coconut sauce pulled the simple flavors together and warmed up as we sat in out wilted raincoats on those little stools.

When our bus arrived in Nha Trang several nights ago, we stepped off it into the Eastern Monsoon which batters the south from May to September. Joylani darted across the sidewalk with our daypacks, while grabbed our big packs from under the bus, trying not to slip in the flooded street. We took a room at the hotel the bus stopped at, which luckily was a good value place. Not so luckily, that night kind of defined our time in Nha Trang. It rained a bit everyday we were there and it was pretty dreary the whole time. Kind of a bummer, considering that the main attraction in Nha Trang is the beach. So how else did we spend our time? Joylani went to a nearby hot springs to indulge in a mudbath and soak in mineral water. We tried a lot of food and found a few treats; delicious BBQ pork and rice for breakfast and fried bananas with glutinous sticky rice and coconut milk for an afternoon dessert. With all the rain, we killed a lot of time at cafes and drank a lot of Vietnamese ice coffee (ca phe sua da), a delicious concoction of coffee, sweetened condensed milk, and ice. We found beer stalls on the street that served pitchers for a mere 14,000 dong, only around .85 USD. Eating aside, Nha Trang was unimpressive. But I feel that even had it been clear and sunny the past few days, it would’ve disappointed. The long stretch of beach is not very pretty, not too mention its full of hawkers and is only separated from the busy city by a busy road. Urban beaches aren’t too great in the first place, and even worse in stormy weather. I’ll try not to dwell on the past few days though.

I had a mud bath today. The Thap Ba Hot Springs are just outside of the city of Nha Trang where we’ve been the last couple of days. It’s supposedly well known in Vietnam for its mud baths, so I decided to give it a try. (Matt adamantly refused saying, “why would I want to go in a hot spring when it is already so hot?” But he was kind enough to be my moto driver and wait outside until I was done.) I went in the morning and there were only a dozen or so other people there. Even though I didn’t pay for the individual tubs, I still had everything to myself. After a quick mineral water shower, one of the attendants filled a hot tub sized bath partway with mud. It was much more watery than I thought it would be, but nice. It was the color of a latte and had a gritty texture. After soaking for a while, I headed back to the shower to rinse off. Then it was off too a little soaking tub with wonderfully hot mineral water. Thankfully, it was actually kind of overcast and cool that day, so the hot water felt nice. I skipped the waterfall and swimming pool since Matt was waiting outside, but with a group of friends, it could have been a fun place to hang out for an afternoon. So, is my skin noticeably exfoliated and radiant? Um, I can’t actually tell, but it was fun to try the whole hot springs mud bath thing. It was a completely different experience from my first (semi) mud bath: 3^rd grade at my friend’s new house where there was no grass, only freshly tilled soil. Much to her dad’s horror, we found a hose and made a huge mud puddle, but I think it caked up the soil when it dried. Oops.

…we conceded to the schemes of the tour company and stayed at the hotel next to the office where our bus dropped us off. It was pouring rain. Sheets of rain. The gutters on the street were filled. We didn’t want to get soaked. Instead of walking a few blocks to find a hotel on our own, we dashed next door into the adjoining hotel. Our room was a few floors up (ie lots of stairs), but walking into our room, I didn’t mind so much that we stayed at the tour company’s hotel. It was nice. Not just one, but two large double beds, fridge, hot water, cable tv—but the best features are big windows on two walls and a balcony, all overlooking a block of roof tops not yet high enough to block a wonderful view of the ocean and a few of the surrounding islands.