Friday 04/04/2014
Morning in Hoi An
At 7:30 in the morning we had a bus reserved to go to Hue, but unfortunately we had to postpone the journey till 13:30. In the middle of the night Tomek woke up suddenly and quickly ran from bed to the toilet and it all started again, but this time it was really bad. He took the diahoerra tablets as well as paracetamol for fever, but the tablets were not helping. In the morning he said that he still feels very bad and can’t get up the bed so I went to the reception for breakfast and asked to cancel the morning trip and changed it to the later one at 13:30 (cost around $10 per person but in better bus). I was prepared to pay for the cancellation, but there was no need. At 12:30 I ordered takeway pizza to the room so we don’t travel with empty stomach. Tomek managed to get up around 12, we packed and left the town at 13:30.
Hue
The initial plan was to leave in the morning at 7:30 by the bus and arrive at Hue around 11am, go to the Forbidden City,explore for few hours, and if the time would allow, go for a boat trip on the river, so called “silk track”, eat some dinner and then around 19:00 catch taxi and go to the airport for the flight to Ho Chi Minh City (flight at 21:40). Unfortunately, because of Tomas’s stomach problems the plans have changed and we were in Hue at 17:00.
Minibus have stopped somewhere by the main road at the outskirts of the City and said that this is the destination (no sights to the city, no bus stop). So we got off the bus having no idea where we are :-). Immediately one of the local men came to “help us”. First he shown us where is the pharmacy, of course he went with us in case if we would need help with translating. We managed to but more tablets for Tomek. In the meantime he has also proposed to leave our luggages in his hotel and with private driver go to see the Forbidden City. Unfortunately it was already very late and the gates were already closed, so we couldn’t go inside. After that, we took our lugagges and the driver took us to the airport. If we would have come to Hue before midday, for sure we would not use them and we would go on our own to the Forbidden City, but it was too late, we didn’t know where we are and we were a little bit tired so we went for the easy option. I don’t remember how much we’ve paid.

The surroundings of the Forbidden City (around 10-15 minutes from the centre) were really beautiful and worth seeing: the old walls with reachly decorated gates, ponds around (where people were fishing!) and looked after, clean paths around the main building. I relly regret that we didn’t have opportunity to go inside to see it fully. It must be beautiful by looking at surroundings. Additionally we found out from the driver (hurray, he was speaking quite good English), that every few years there is a very big event organized and it is in this year around 1 week after our departure. Shame we didn’t know about it earlier, maybe I would plan the trip differently. If someone wants to come to Vietnam to the certain cities, I would recommend to check if there are no events, these are definitely worth experiencing, local people from all over the Vietnam, parades, concerts, food on the streets, I would like to see it. Maybe one day. Anyway, after around an hour of walking we jumped back to the car and went to the airport.
Night in Ho Chi Minh
In writing ……

Continue reading about our trip in Vietnam here: Vietnam – Con Dao
Basic Travel Information and Our Travel Plan you will find here: Vietnam – Basic Travel Information and Our Travel Plan