FINALLY some sunshine!!!

This morning at breakfast I noticed something interesing at our breakfast buffet:

Every day at breakfast I walked up to this table to get honey, as they had 5-6 different kinds of honey to try.

Wait a second, those are LIVE BEES. I can't believe in the 5 nights we spent at this hotel I didn't notice LIVE BEES at the breakfast buffet!

After breakfast we headed to the Hanoi airport for a flight to Da Nang, then a train from Da Nang to Hue in south central Vietnam. Plane travel is really the way to go here - Vietnam is as long north/south as the distance from Florida to Washinton D.C., and there are no truly fast highways. The trip from Hanoi to Hue by car would have been 12 hours! Our flight on Vietnam Airlines was only about $50!

We arrived at the airport and discovered that our flight was delayed by almost three hours, meaning I was sure we were going to miss our train, as we would have to pick up our checked luggage and take a taxi to the train station. I even emailed the hotel in Hue to tell them we probably wouldn't make the train and to cancel the pickup. But we got lucky, our luggage came out quickly, and our taxi driver understood our rush and drove a little crazy to get us to the train station on time, only a few minutes before the train arrived. :)

The train ride from Danang to Hue was highly recommded to Lonely Planet, but we discovered it has the best scenery if one was sitting on the OPPOSITE side of the train from where our assigned seats were located. We we on the side with a pure wall of jungle beside us, and we were facing the direction to be traveling BACKWARDS for 2.5 hours, not the best situation for my motion-sickness-prone self. Most of the Vietnamese travelers on the opposite side of the train closed the curtains to keep cool, but I could see flashes of ocean and mountains through the few openings, much better scenery that we were getting. :)

Train ride to Hue, a brief break in the thick jungle.

Rice paddies and mountains.

Ride paddies.

We arrived in Hue and were ecstatic to see the sun for the first time this entire trip! It was hot and humid in Hue, and we couldn't have been happier. We took a taxi to our hotel, the Indochine Palace Resort, and were also delighted to see the huge, refreshing pool.

Indochine Palace Hotel.

The awesome pool!

After relaxing in our lovely rooms for a bit, we decided to go to the Dong Ba market. I of course managed to take us 1km in the entirely wrong direction, :) but we got to see the bustling streets of Hue with packs of mopeds and motorcycles, so many that when we tried to catch at taxi there were none to be found! We walked back past the hotel and stopped at pretty much the first restaurant we saw, with lovely lanterns, a second floor dining area and literally NOBODY eating there, which made me a little nervous. Our waitress spoke not a word of english, and we ordered by pointing at pictures on the menu. Our meals arrived, and they were some of the best food we have had yet in Vietnam. After finishing our plates, we ordered even more food! As we were finishing our meal, groups of locals began to arrive, and not a single tourist. Great find!

 

Hue, motorcycle central. :)

We had taken so long to enjoy our dinner that the Dong Ba market was closed. We walked back to the hotel to take advantage of the awesome pool. The womens' locker room where I took a pre-pool shower had a pretty nasty smell. As I rinsed my hair I turned around and saw there was a decomposing dead frog on the floor of the shower to account for the smell! Yuck! I finished my shower quickly and proved myself worthy of this classy hotel by cannonballing into the pool. :) After cooling down and swimming a few laps in the pool, we headed to bed. Tomorrow we'll see what adventures I can arrange in Hue.

 

 

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