Friday morning we say a sad goodbye to all our new friends at Hoi An Trails resort an join or new best friends Wendy and Phil from Brisbane, who have hired a driver from Hue to drive us up the coast, over the mountains to imperial Hue.
Sadly, it s drizzling and just gets worse for the whole 3 hour journey. They have been to Hue before so know the area. The driver wants to take us on a 5 hour tour to Hue, we tell him, just A to B mate and he obliges. We stop en route at a rest stop, plenty of trinkets and trash but clean toilets too.
This drive is listed as spectacular, one of the most scenic in Vietam. But today it's one delue after another, low cloud which we are in. We have a choice of the 7km tunnel or the 24km twisty mountain drive and opt for the former. Too too bad. Camera stays in case.
We briefly see hints of the beaches, bays, islands and verdant hills but it's lost in the mountain mist and cloud. We see the famed China Beach, it looks nice...
We arrive in historic imperial Hue where we'll stay for 8 days, too much for what we have read, but we are now making up time not spent in Cambodia.
The beach downtime we planned for half way through this trip didn't materialize in Hoi An and it doesn't look like it will at the nice waterlogged but garbage-strewn beach 12km from Hue city. The only resort has its own beach but once you leave it, watch for the garbage. The little seafood restaurants along the beach, typical of third world, just bury their garbage in the sand at the end of the day - much like parts of Mexico.
We book into the classy but dated Imperial Hotel, half price at $70 a night on Agoda.com (love that site) where Wendy stayed before. Our huge, lovely room high on the 14th floor overlooks the glitzy downtown, Perfume River(?) and we can see rice fields in the distance. Once the rain stops, we should have a nice view out to sea.
We chose this hotel for the nice outdoor pool on the 3rd floor rooftop, I hope we get to use it after all!
TripAdvisor where would we be without you! Unfortunately it's also very subjective,so you have to do the trial and error thing. The hotel suggests a restaurant and books us a table. We look it up on TA and it's pretty but bad food. We politely cancel and head out to the Family House restaurant nearby, almost full at 6:30pm, overwhelmed by 7:30, and OK local food. The Hue specialties seem to be all deep fried...But dinner of three enorous appies and 4 beers is US$10! We can't finish our shrimp rolls, take pity on the table beside us with beers but no sign of food, and offer them nibbles with their beer. They are pleased.
We have found the French patisseries a block away, it's looking up...
Back a block or so in the rain, I fill up my bathtub with the blue bath crystals from their spa here - aaaah - by the time I finish, Ted has passed out an despite the loud party above us outdoors on the 16th floor. I try to write my log and also pass out pen in hand...
Sadly, it s drizzling and just gets worse for the whole 3 hour journey. They have been to Hue before so know the area. The driver wants to take us on a 5 hour tour to Hue, we tell him, just A to B mate and he obliges. We stop en route at a rest stop, plenty of trinkets and trash but clean toilets too.
This drive is listed as spectacular, one of the most scenic in Vietam. But today it's one delue after another, low cloud which we are in. We have a choice of the 7km tunnel or the 24km twisty mountain drive and opt for the former. Too too bad. Camera stays in case.
We briefly see hints of the beaches, bays, islands and verdant hills but it's lost in the mountain mist and cloud. We see the famed China Beach, it looks nice...
We arrive in historic imperial Hue where we'll stay for 8 days, too much for what we have read, but we are now making up time not spent in Cambodia.
The beach downtime we planned for half way through this trip didn't materialize in Hoi An and it doesn't look like it will at the nice waterlogged but garbage-strewn beach 12km from Hue city. The only resort has its own beach but once you leave it, watch for the garbage. The little seafood restaurants along the beach, typical of third world, just bury their garbage in the sand at the end of the day - much like parts of Mexico.
We book into the classy but dated Imperial Hotel, half price at $70 a night on Agoda.com (love that site) where Wendy stayed before. Our huge, lovely room high on the 14th floor overlooks the glitzy downtown, Perfume River(?) and we can see rice fields in the distance. Once the rain stops, we should have a nice view out to sea.
We chose this hotel for the nice outdoor pool on the 3rd floor rooftop, I hope we get to use it after all!
TripAdvisor where would we be without you! Unfortunately it's also very subjective,so you have to do the trial and error thing. The hotel suggests a restaurant and books us a table. We look it up on TA and it's pretty but bad food. We politely cancel and head out to the Family House restaurant nearby, almost full at 6:30pm, overwhelmed by 7:30, and OK local food. The Hue specialties seem to be all deep fried...But dinner of three enorous appies and 4 beers is US$10! We can't finish our shrimp rolls, take pity on the table beside us with beers but no sign of food, and offer them nibbles with their beer. They are pleased.
We have found the French patisseries a block away, it's looking up...
Back a block or so in the rain, I fill up my bathtub with the blue bath crystals from their spa here - aaaah - by the time I finish, Ted has passed out an despite the loud party above us outdoors on the 16th floor. I try to write my log and also pass out pen in hand...
No comments:
Post a Comment