Inside Vietnam & Angkor Wat, Cambodia: Hue

Up very early for the 4 hour return drive to the Hanoi Airport for our departure to Hue (and hopefully warmer weather). The flight was less than an hour so we only received bottled water before landing. Then off to claim our luggage & meet our new driver Hai (pronounced hi) - needless to say we had a lot of fun greeting him - Hi Hai! (easy to remember). All these drivers deserve medals for their ability to negotiate this crazy traffic of scooters, bicycles, rickshaws, cars, and local buses who for some reason always lay on their horns when passing tourist buses. (too much testosterone).

Hue was once Vietnam's Imperial City and later the country's capital under the Nguyen dynasty (1802-1945).

We finally arrive at our hotel, the Camellia Hotel - absolutely gorgeous with dark wood and beautiful furnishings. After settling in our rooms we took the elevator to the 11th floor for lunch. Our waiter guided us to the special "outdoor seating" in the Love Cafe - hilarious because it was enclosed and any attempt at dining alfresco would have resulted in death from falling 11 stories to the concrete sidewalk below. Lunch consisted of crab + asparagus soup for me (crab + corn soup for the others at my table) and spring rolls all around. We thought we were going to get 2-4 spring rolls like at home, but the dinner plate must have had at least 15-20 small spring rolls on it (and, I ate every one of them on my plate). We added 2 more local beers to our checklist: Huda and Festival (Huda was the clear favorite).

Time to work off lunch with a short walk to the pier to catch our dragon boat cruise down the Txubon River. Very relaxing time and lots of commerce on board with some of our group purchasing slacks, T-shirts & bags from the very persistent Vietnamese women on board.

The dragon boat colorful bow.

Further down the river was the Thien Mieu Pagoda, constructed beginning in 1601. It is often called the symbol of Hue and is one of the oldest & loveliest religious structures in Vietnam. Each of its 7 tiers is dedicated to one of the human forms taken by Buddha or the 7 steps to enlightenment.

The last activity for the day was a visit to the water puppet theater. It was pretty dark inside and most of the puppet acts involved frantic movement - making it very challenging to take photos that weren't blurry. The puppets are constructed with lightweight wood like balsa then lacquered in incredible detail - unfortunately only lasting about a year because they are in the water so much over the course of several shows.