Hue - Phong Nha
Today was our last day in Hue. I'm going to digress for a minute because I'd really like to encourage everyone to visit Hue if you're in the area. In most of my research, the general consensus was that it was ok to skip Hue, and most people seemed to think there wasn't much to it. On the contrary, we really enjoyed our time there. We enjoyed the city as well as our tours, it was easy to get around, people were friendly. It's also very easy to take the train up from Da Nang. I would definitely recommend making the trip for a couple of nights if you're staying in Hoi An. Hue even has its own airport, so you could easily fly into Da Nang, then fly out of Hue, or vice versa.
Back to our regularly scheduled program...
We were going to use our last morning to explore the Citadel. It was about a 20 minute walk from our hotel, just across the river.
That bridge was very busy!
Unfortunately we didn't have a very good map with us, but I didn't think it would be too hard to find. I was wrong.
We managed to find our way in past the first wall, but didn't really know where to go from there. I suspected it was to the left. At that point we were approached by a cyclo driver, who told us to go right. He followed us as we wandered along, getting more and more lost and heading back towards the outer edge. Eventually DH asked if he could take us to the Citadel (which I'm sure was his plan all along). He told us that the Citadel wouldn't open until later, but he could take us for a ride around the area. At that point we were getting grumpy and my feet were starting to hurt, and it was starting to rain, so we negotiated a decent price with him and set off.
We started off on the back streets along the very edge of the wall.
The driver stopped at one of the watch towers for us to climb up and take photos.
There were some interesting things to see along the way.
The next stop was a pagoda with a view towards a bomb shelter. The Citadel area was heavily bombed during the Vietnam war.
Next he dropped us off at some pretty gardens. There seemed to be some high end shops among the gardens, but nobody seemed that interested in us, so we just wandered around.
The rain had definitely set in by that stage, and we were amused to see locals wearing special ponchos that covered their whole
scooter/motorbike with a little see-through patch over the headlight. So clever!
Eventually we passed the actual Citadel area. It clearly was open and there were many taxis, buses and generally people entering.
The last stop on our short tour was the museum. There were a heap of war remnants outside, but inside was mainly artifacts from the palace. There was no photography allowed, and we had to take off our shoes to enter.
I was slightly annoyed to see that we had finished up the tour pretty close to where we'd come in, and that if we had have turned left instead of right, it only would have been a 5 minute walk to the Citadel which was clearly open. Still, the tour had been great, and we'd seen things that not many people would have.
Unfortunately we had to head back to the hotel by then, so we didn't have time for the actual Citadel as well. That will just have to wait until next time. We got the cyclo driver to take us back across the river, thinking it would be an easy enough walk from there.
Back at the hotel we picked up our luggage and waited about 5 minutes for our pre-ordered taxi. Then we were on our way to the train station. It was only about a 10 minute drive, maybe 15 max. We arrived with plenty of time to spare, and not much to do! There was a little waiting area for people, much like an airport lounge. DH went for a short walk and brought back some pho that we shared for lunch, and the time went fairly quickly just people watching.
There were no announcements or anything, but eventually people started lining up at the entrance to the platform. It was about the right time for the train, so we joined them, thinking it must have arrived. It hadn't, we were just changing waiting areas.
We bought some drinks and snacks for the trip from a vendor on the platform, and amused ourselves watching the staff prepare for the train.
Eventually it did arrive of course!
It was a nightmare trying to get on - every man for himself! DH and I were patiently waiting for everyone to get off first, but that didn't leave us with much time at all to get us and our luggage on board. Luckily we had assigned seats, so at least we didn't have to worry about that. There were overhead luggage shelves, but if our cases were any bigger they wouldn't have fit. We had booked soft seats, which were comfortable enough for day time travel.
The train itself was a weird mixture of kind of dirty and broken (seats, trays etc), but modern (power points, TV etc). There were power points and coat hooks on alternating rows, and our row had a coat hook. There was just one TV for the whole carriage (like an old school plane) and was obviously in Vietnamese, but one show that I ended up watching had English subtitles. Unfortunately with the rain and the late afternoon light fading to night, there wasn't much to see from the windows.
The train was very busy until the first stop, Dong Ha, which was about half way distance wise, but only about a third of the way time wise. Most people got off there and nobody really got on. The train didn't stop for long at all, and DH and I were a bit worried about how we were going to go getting off at our stop with our luggage. We came up with a plan for DH to get off first with his bag, then I would pass mine to him. It worked well. For anyone interested, the toilet was in pretty good condition, but was out of toilet paper. I've learnt to always carry tissues with me in Vietnam.
It was about a 3 hour journey. I'd alternated between watching the TV (they had a Vietnamese travel show on!) and working on my lappie (we pinched the power point from the seat in front of us at Dong Hoi station), and the time had kind of dragged. I highly recommend taking something specific to do on the train.
Eventually we got to Dong Hoi, and managed to get ourselves and our luggage off the train. We found our driver and got settled in the car while he went to wait for the others. We were joined by an Austrian couple.
The drive went fairly quickly, and we were all pleased to finally arrive at our destination for the next few days, Phong Nha Lake House Resort (don't let the 'resort' part of the name fool you). As this area doesn't get much tourism yet, there are no real hotels. This place was more of a hostel with private rooms (although I believe there is a dorm if you want one).
We checked ourselves in, and carried our own luggage to our room. I had fairly low expectations of the room, and was pleasantly surprised. It had everything we needed, plenty of room, and the bed was comfy. There was only a tiny tank on the water heater for the shower, which we had to turn on a few hours before we wanted a shower (before bed worked well) so we had to be careful not to run out of hot water.
After checking out the room, we went back upstairs to the communal bar/restaurant/lounging around type area for some dinner. Food and drinks here were definitely hit and miss. A lot of the time they didn't have the ingredients for the stuff we ordered, so we had to always make sure we had several back up options! The staff were definitely more friendly than professional too.
I should also mention, we got the train tickets through our hotel in Hue. We visited a few of the travel agents in the area, but they all tried to talk us out of taking the train, insisting that a bus would be better! When we asked at the hotel, they were happy to book them for us. There was a small surcharge for doing it that way, but the tickets were so cheap anyway it didn't really matter. The only way to avoid the surcharge is to buy the tickets from the train station, which seemed like a lot of hassle to save about 50 cents.
