The next day we were leaving Hue (pronounced 'hway'), but in the morning, Shanty, Erik, Beate, Francois and myself undertook a walking tour (which we saw on a pamphlet we got from the Mandarin cafe). We made our way by ferry across the Perfume river to the market first of all. Actually that in itself was a bit of an adventure. We decided to set off about 8.30am or so, so that we would have enough time to do the tour, and see the Purple Forbidden City.
We decided to do our tour in reverse, so we could end up at the Mandarin cafe, rather than start there. This is because Mr Cu, the owner of the Mandarin cafe, is a famous photographer and takes fabulous photos of Vietnamese life in Hue which he then sells in his cafe - we wanted to have some time to peruse these. So, we set off looking firstly for the ferry crossing which we could see on the map.
Could we find it? No, not really. We crossed one bridge (as the map lead us to believe we should) only to be confronted by several locals who told us to go back to another location (which reluctantly we did). Francois was actually quite adamant that we shouldn't - but majority ruled, and we did - and managed to hire another boat to cross the river - for the princely sum of $1 per person. Whatever. It was cheap enough.
Upon arrival across the river we found ourselves in the Dong Ba market. This was quite spectacular (as markets go), crowded and full of variety. We decided to make our way through the market, rather than around (but not before attempting to go around anyway) and we were treated to interesting sights - chickens in cages, loads of fresh fish and seafood (and terrible smelling too) and then the usual stuff, cloth, clothes, tiger balm, helmets... tack. And everyone trying to sell you something...
Having made our way through we tried to negotiate our way towards the Citadel but we were conscious even then of running out of time - we had to be back at the hotel before 12 to shower and leave at 1230. As we were walking around and consulting the map, we came across the leader of the pack, our bikie tour leader from yesterday, who pointed us in the right direction. We found him outside the local cinema, which was deafeningly advertising the going rates for the movies it was showing on a loud speaker outside. REALLY loud.
Wandering around the back streets as he had suggested, we came across interesting sights - street sellers selling petrol in soft drink bottles, for one. We eventually came to the object of our quest - the Purple Forbidden City.
Built in around 1804, this was the residence of the imperial family. It was designed to replicate the forbidden city in Beijing. The French razed much of it when they left after World War 2, and the Americans finished off much of the rest with bombs during the Vietnam War, but there remain several interesting structures here. They are not fully restored, but several remaining buildings contain interesting artifacts from the era, thrones, etc. It was well worth the visit.
Time however was fast ticking by and we decided to head back, via the Mandarin cafe - but this time by taxi, rather than walking. We even managed to get the guy to agree to wait outside the Mandarin whilst we picked our photos (and he barely kept the meter running! So cheap...).
Shopping completed (Mr Cu's photos really are quite something, and well worth a visit - plus he is so generous, he gave us quite a few free ones as well), we headed back for a quick shower. We had decided to tell Vaughn that we didn't want to walk the 20 minute walk back to the Mandarin for lunch as, having had our shower, and seeing as how hot and humid it was, we would be all sticky and sweaty again - thus defeating the purpose of the shower. So when we met he was quite happy for us to venture off on our own, offering this salient point - that it would be better to split up so we could be served in time.
Alas, we didn't really heed his advice - much to our chagrin. Because, having had so much Vietnamese food, we really wanted something a bit more western, and ended up at an Italian restaurant, all 6 of us. We'd decided to ask for some items to take away as well, for the train. There in lay our problem, as clearly the girl didn't understand what we were on about. It took an absolute eternity for our food to be prepared - and even then the order was wrong, and we got the standard "same same - but different" response. Time was running out and we didn't have time to argue with her though. Her version of a large pizza was barely even a pizzette!
We walked quickly back to the hotel to meet the bus and head for the train station. The station in Hue is really not all that - certainly not much in the way of purchasable snacks for the journey - so it was lucky we had got some food for the journey in advance. Eventually the train came - it was sooo hot though and we were quite uncomfortable, waiting out there on the tracks, in the hot, humid afternoon sun, with the only refreshments available being some over warm bottles of water or a couple of hard boiled eggs the street seller was selling - so we were quite relieved when the train finally came and we were able to get on. And then we experienced problem number 2...
... the air con didn't work! And we were looking at a 13 hour journey to Hanoi! How can we survive 13 hours in stinking hot heat to Hanoi?! I mean, the air con would come on periodically, and then shut off, come on, shut off - if you walked through another carriage it very soon became blatantly obvious that ours was the oven and the others the refrigerator! Co-incidentally, ours was also full of tourists, and the locals in the others... hehehe...
So Vaughn had a word to the conductor and we got moved out of the frying pan and into... the freezer! Our new carriage had the aircon on frostbite mode, so that pretty soon we needed to rug up with all our warm clothes (which really was a bit stupid). I was in a carriage with Vaughn and Francois (as I had been the whole tour) but in this carriage we didn't get a 4th person the whole time, so I had my pick of a bed. In the end, it being so cold, I opted for the lower bunk, as it was sort of out of the flight path of the big freeze. Francois, being an engineer, decided to try to do something about it - so he pulled out of his bag a sewing kit he had procured at one of the hotels and started to try to sew a piece of paper over the vent. That didn't work, so he then produced Canadian coins with magnets stuck on the back - but the vent wasn't metallic, and they didn't stick. Eventually he found a piece of paper with a remnant of sticky tape on it, and stuck that over the vent. It made it marginally warmer.
The rest of the journey proceeded pretty much without incident except for one thing. Due to the fact that it was oh so cold in our carriage, I really didn't get much sleep. In fact, I was lucky if I got 30 minutes during the whole 13 hour journey. So when we pulled into Hanoi at 4am, I was not a happy camper... and was even less happy when we alighted from the train and discovered that we had landed smack bang in the middle of the north Vietnamese winter - and it was actually cold...! With my limited winter clothes, what had I got myself in to?
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