Day 48: Hue More Than Enough Time

Listening: Evolution is real. Secrets we have never revealed. Did you leave your mark? Was it real?

What's my problem? More time? Less time? I can't tell anymore.

So, clearly I have a death wish. When I got on my motorbike, I completely forgot that Sapa is a town surrounded by mountains. What that means is that the roads wind around said mountains, and one side of the road looks out over the cliffs of said mountains. Yeah. Clifhanging, white knuckle scootering. And I felt completely sketched out if I went over 40 kph. I tried gunning it on a straightaway, but when I hit 60, I was like, "Whoah... Mucho rapido! Mui mal!"

I took the scooter up to Silver Waterfall, which is a good eighteen kliks away from Sapa. The bike rental guy told me that it was all new roads on the way there. It gave me a sense of security that I would easily be able to navigate the roads and check out this cool site. I was wrong. By new roads, I guess he meant that they were still being built or were in such disarray that they would need new roads soon. Sure, there were stretches of pristine pavement, but there were large stretches of large gravel roads (by large gravel roads, I don't mean that the roads are large, I mean that the gravel is large), dust roads, dirt roads, roads of broken pavement, and some straight up rocks. It was daunting, to be honest.

I was about nine kliks in when I saw a couple that I had met in Sapa walking the road back towards me. I stopped to ask if the waterfall was close, because it had felt like I had rode eighteen kliks. They said that they didn't know. They had been walking since Sapa and had decided to turn around because they couldn't find the waterfall. I told them that I would drive ahead and that if it was close, I would come back to tell them. I never went back, because it was another eight kliks until I found the waterfall area.

The waterfall area itself is pretty small. Since it was dry season, it really wasn't more than a trickle. Sure, it was nice, but I couldn't see Fanxipan like I thought that I would be able to.

After hitting up the waterfall, I was pretty hungry, so I headed back into Sapa to a place called Baguette & Chocolate. This place was mentioned in the Lonely Planet, and I'd say that a good two thirds of the places that I have tried have sucked. This place, though, looked nice and comfortable. It had a number of people sitting and enjoying their meals, so I decided to try it.

I ended up ordering the snack menu which consisted of my choice of sandwich, a side of fries and a Vietnamese coffee. I picked a chicken pesto sandwich. It was all very good, and they probably had the best fries that I have ordered in southeast Asia. I ordered a tiramisu for dessert, but that kind of sucked. I guess when you're spoiled by Cafe Vittoria in the North End, all other tiramisu sucks.

After lunch, I headed to Cat Cat Village and Sin Chai Village. I actually went to Sin Chai first since it was already three in the afternoon, and Sin Chai was further away. I had to have the bike back around five. Sin Chai was definitely an operational village. There were people living there and working the land. It was not touristy at all. There was a single woman who tried to sell me a bag. I followed the road in Sin Chai until I could no longer go. It literally ended at a house's doorstep. The residents looked confused as I tried to turn my scooter around. Luckily, I got some help from a Hmong teenager.

Cat Cat Village was more than I expected. It was definitely touristy, but it was expansive and it was beautiful. The land was terraced, and there were handicraft workshops everywhere. Pigs and ducks roamed freely up and down the steps of the village. There were cool bridges and a waterfall. I only had enough time to see half of the village, unfortunately. It was really nice though.

From there, I returned my scooter. I was afraid that the guy would run off with my passport, but at the end of the day, there he was and my passport was in tact. I got the scooter for an amazing price. Normally, manual motorbikes go for about five dollars a day. Automatics go for about ten. I got an automatic for six dollars for the day, and it was a brand new scooter. As a matter of fact, a bunch of locals that I stopped in front of commented on its newness.

Just as I was about to head up the hill to the travel agency, I see a group of motorbikes coming down the hill. I recognize a face. It's Clover, half of my favorite set of twins! "Clover!" I shout. She turns around on the bike and says, "Heeeeey!" as Adam, the guy driving continued away. I followed them down to the Queen Hotel where I got their update.

We had all left Hanoi on the same day. A group of twelve of them took off on motorbikes to ride from Hanoi to Sapa. The ride was supposed to take two days. I ran into Andrew, one of the drivers, on the day I got back from my trek to Ban Ho. He said that he and another driver lost the rest of the group on day one. He said that the others were having problems with their bikes. He said that they broke down a number of times in the first half of the first day.

It took the rest of the group four days to get to Sapa. They had crashed a number of times, gotten flat tires, ran out of petrol, and a host of other things. It was good to see Clover and Sophie again. Actually, about half of my Halong Bay Tour people were on that trip from Hanoi to Sapa. It was, indeed, craziness.

Not long after I ran into Clover and Sophie, I was back on the night train to Hanoi. On the night train up to Sapa, I was freezing cold. I had worn the wrong clothing and the A/C was blowing on me all night long. So I was prepared this time. I had on my heavier pants, my thermal shirt, my fleece vest and my jacket. A lot of good that preparation did.

This time, the cabin Robert and I were in was a sauna. It sucked big balls. I sweat my entire way back down to Hanoi. I think I could have died in there, or at least I could have lost 90% of my water weight.

Since May hooked me up with a room at Hanoi Backpackers, I was able to sleep a few hours, get a nice shower and just feel cleaner. I got into Hanoi at around five in the morning, was able to check into my bed at eleven, got up and left the hostel around two and had lunch with Robert.

After lunch, I went over to Hoa Lo Prison, also known as the Hanoi Hilton to American pilots shot down in the Vietnam War. It was a pretty intense place. There was much more history to the place other than the fact that there were some American pilots caged there. There were Vietnamese caged there as well. They were imprisoned by the French. It was really interesting how first the Vietnamese were imprisoned and then the Americans.

By the time I had finished with that, it was time for me to pack up and head to Hue. I cut it really close getting to the bus though. I had put my laundry in for express service, and it was being packed up just fifteen minutes before I was supposed to be at the bus.

The bus itself kinda blew. It was a sleeper bus, but it was still very cramped. The bus was two beds high by three beds wide with an aisle going between the rows. My bed was about a foot and a half to two feet wide. Yeah, I was cramped, and my shoulders and elbows spilled into the aisles.

I did my best to make the best of it. I plugged in for a while and read "Eat, Pray, Love." I made friends with some German girls. Other than that, the ride was uneventful.

We got to Hue at around nine in the morning. I ended up following the German girls to their hotel, because I didn't have anywhere booked. I ended up paying fifteen dollars for a room by myself. Luckily, it was clean, had A/C and had TV.

The first thing I did after I cleaned myself up was go find some Bun Bo Hue, as requested by Linh. I asked the person at the front desk where the best place in town to get Bun Bo Hue was, and she marked it down on my map. Originally, she said that it would take twenty minutes to get there. I looked at the map and I didn't believe her. And I was right. It only took about ten minutes. I didn't need to rent a bicycle. I didn't need to catch a cyclo or a motorbike. I didn't need a taxi. I think she was just try to sell me.

When I got there, it was kind of an open storefront. All it said in front was "Bun Bo Hue." I knew that I had arrived. From the first spicy slurp, it was pure bliss. Bun Bo Hue is a beef noodle soup with a spicy, rich broth. Mine came with a huge chunk of a cow, skin, bone and all. The skin had been simmered for so long that it had turned into beefy jello. Sinking my teeth into it was a purely pornographic act. It was depraved and dirty, and I liked it.

After my breakfast/lunch, I headed over to the Citadel, where I ended up bumping into another German girl that I had met in Sapa. Since we were both lone travelers, I invited her to join me. At one of gates to the Forbidden Purple City, I saw the two German girls from the bus, and invited them to join us.

It took a couple of hours for us to walk around the Citadel. To be honest, there wasn't an incredible amount to see. There were a lot of ruins, but there wasn't a lot of information. I could have, however, paid some money to have dressed up like an imperial mandarin.

After the citadel, we all got some food that, well, to be honest sucked big donkey balls. It's not worth saying much more than that. Let's just say that it fell into the two thirds of the places in the Lonely Planet that can kiss my yellow ass.

We all kind of decided that we wanted to go see some tombs and pagodas, so we collectively hired a taxi to take us around. Coincidentally, it was the same taxi driver that brought the two German girls and I to our hotel. He was a good sport though. He took us to Tuc Du tomb and to a Pagoda. While we walked around, we heard that all of the tombs are relatively the same, so we skipped out on a bunch of them.

As we walked around, we looked to see how much more there was to see in the city. It didn't look like much. There were the DMZ (demilitarized zone) tours, but I was told and I read that if you;re not a Vietnam war buff or you weren't there, the tours aren't going to mean much to you. So I opted out. As the four of us walked around, we pretty much decided that there wasn't enough to keep us in Hue another night.

For dinner, I brought them to the Bun Bo Hue place. They loved it. I loved having it again. I think that the owners thought that I was weird for being the only foreigner there the first time, and then coming back with some more foreigners for seconds.

That brings us to this morning, where the four of us hopped the bus to Hoi An. It's beautiful here. I get a really good vibe from this place. I'm currently having one chef's coat being made and a reproduction of one of my favorite shirts being made as well. If they look nice, I'll buy more. The chef's coat will cost thirty five dollars each, less if I buy enough, and the shirt will be ten dollars. I also was looking at prescription glasses. I can get a pair here for about fifty US dollars. I'm thinking about it. I think that if everything goes as planned, I'll pay about $200 for six chef coats and maybe another $20 for two shirts. Should I throw in a pair of glasses? Man I'm really stimulating this economy.

Anyhow, I have to go meet the Germans for dinner. More on the progress of the clothes later.