Hue

inside the forbidden city
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We arrived in Hue by overnight train yesterday morning. Hue is to Hanoi as Chiangmai is to Bangkok. Much more relaxed, cleaner and just a really beautiful town. the streets are wide and treelined and not cramped with 10 zillion motorbikes! anyways, we started yesterday off with a tour of the Citadel and the forbidden city. Hue was the imperial capital (ruled by the chinese) of Vietnam before the french took over and colonized the country so there is lots of chinese influence. had a tour of the royal grounds as well as a run down of the history of the dynasties. spent the rest of the day wandering around, had a typical 'hue' meal of nem and banh at a restaurant run by deaf people and spent the afternoon exploring the city and having drinks in the shade becuase it is so friggin hot in this country!

Vietnamese countryside
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Today we did a motorbike tour of the village country side, imperial tombs, perfume pagoda, as well as a host of other sites. while i had my apprehensions with sitting on the back of a motorcycle, it turned out to be really good fun!though there was some serious off roading and my butt flew off the seat  at times, as well as a few near accidents on the roads....

What really touched us as we drove through the countryside  were the little kids running out of all the villages  to greet us as we drove through screaming hello and giving us high fives. it really was amazing to see the excitement on their little faces. also words cannot describe how amazing it was to drive through the narrow dirt roads as the vietnamese countryside opened up against the blue skies. sounds cheesy but the contrast of the yellow fields and the conical hats of the farmers bobbing in the fields against the blue skies was stunning and seeing how hard it is to harvest rice has made me seriously think twice about how much rice i throw away at each meal. each farmer only makes about 150 bucks U.S. a year on their harvest. every grain counts for them...

Having my fortune read
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had my fortune read by this tiny old vietnamese lady on an ancient bridge (i know - how cliche) but she was fairly accurate with her predictions - or i suppose how i anticipate/hope my life will turn out. - or maybe she is just really good at reading people's faces and their desires? who knows...

After visiting the imperial tombs, we had lunch at a buddhist nunnery. very interesting as i did not even know that buddhist nuns existed! they prepared a huge vegetarian meal for us and afterwards we had a nap in one of the rooms in the convent. i passed out until one of the nuns rang a bell... i guess everyone takes a nap after lunch at the convent??? anyways, took a picture of one of the nuns who was quietly hovering at the door way... she was the sweetest looking thing.

one of the nuns who welcomed us at the nunnery
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ended the day off with a cruise on the perfume river as well as a look at the perfume pagoda again, remnants from imperial times. crazy to see that a lot of the stuff we saw today was bullet ridden and damaged during the Vietnam-US war...

Tomorrow we are off to Hoi An.