We were greeted with a much-welcome chilled ginger juice when we arrived at the Melia Vinpearl Hotel, Hue, after our overnight train. With a few hours to kill before our 2 pm check-in time, we wandered off in the 32-degree heat to find the Đông Ba Market. On the way we checked out the dragon boats to see if a trip on the Perfume River might be of interest. The river’s name is a mystery given its aroma, it’s also allegedly the cleanest river in Vietnam which doesn’t leave much hope for others. The boat ticket hawkers tried to convince us to act immediately and go on a cruise today as ‘it is going to rain tomorrow’. My weather app predicted 33 degrees and sunny for tomorrow so we weren’t compelled to rush. ‘But my phone says rain’, one persistent seller pressed as she followed us riverside until we ducked into a cafe to try another of Vietnam’s special coffees, this time Cà Phê Muối or salt coffee. Widely believed to have been created here in Hue in 2010 the original cafe owners said, ‘This combination of condensed milk, salt and black coffee creates a creamy mixture that softens the bitterness of the coffee and balances the sweetness of the condensed milk.’ I don’t know if that’s the case but I like it very much!
After dodging the remaining ticket hawkers and peddelo drivers we crossed the Perfume River to its north bank and explored Đông Ba Market. While the market is mostly undercover giving it shade, it was still stinking hot as we meandered our way down the crowded narrow aisles fending off offers to stop and look at t-shirts, shoes, toys, fruit, fish, and many interesting-looking sauces. While it was an interesting place to visit it’s very much a shopping spot for locals with not much of interest for these hot tourists.
Just before 1pm, I received a WhatsApp message from the hotel that our room was ready. Given that check-out time is midday this was great work and much appreciated. We ambled slowly, it was hard to do anything but when the temperature is over 30 degrees, to reception to collect our keys. The first word out of our mouths when we entered our room was ‘wow’. We were located on the 27th floor with a room-length floor-to-ceiling window which gave a great view of the surrounding area. The bathroom featured a shower and a nearly full-sized bath next to a large window, while sitting in the bath (or on the loo for that matter) you got a great vista. The vista wasn’t so good for the person in the room looking back into the bathroom so we did use the privacy blind most of the time. There is plenty of space around the bed for a table to read at, a desk, and a TV on a cabinet while opposite the bathroom is a fridge, luggage storage shelf and a spacious wardrobe with a safe. 5 stars for 3,650,210 Dong for two nights, or $120NZD per night including breakfast. After ‘wowing’ at the view I spent a few minutes convincing myself that the hotel wouldn’t fall down trying to calm my fear of heights.
After not getting a lot of sleep on the train an afternoon of chill was required so we headed straight to the pool. Murray applied sunblock anticipating settling in for the afternoon but we soon discovered this was unnecessary, the pool is indoors. While it is lined with windows on one side, many of which were open providing a cooling breeze and it was certainly refreshing, it wasn’t the sort of place you felt like spending hours.
After a nap Murray felt like relaxing in the bath and enjoying the view and I opted for a view without Murray in the bath. An Aperol spritz in the Zenith bar on the 34th floor was just the thing to enjoy watching the sun droop, turning the sky as orange as my cocktail. After Murray joined me for a beer we decided to go to the restaurant one level below. I opted for the set menu Western option, which consisted of a crusty bread roll with tomato butter, salmon wrapped around a ball of cream cheese, steak with vegetables and a not-too-sweet fruit tart. The menu also included a glass of wine, all for about $35NZD.
The hotel breakfast buffet was amazing, my only problem with it was there wasn’t enough room in my stomach to try everything. They even had a low table as a ‘kids station’ where children could help themselves to things like fruit skewers and tiny pancakes. There was a dedicated pho station, which I couldn’t go past as well as an array of foods from all over the world.
Saturday was planned around having to be somewhere to watch the All Blacks play Australia, but it wasn’t until 2pm local time, so we had the entire morning to sightsee. We opted again for the double-decker City Sightseeing bus and the four-hour ticket. We were very confused when the hostess explained that we had to choose two stops as we’d expected to have the same flexibility as in Hanoi but it soon became obvious. With buses running only every hour by the time you had two hours at stops and allowing time for the journey that was pretty much your four hours up. We opted for the Huong Village (Incense Village) and Tomb of Khải Định. Each stop consisted of about 10 minutes of walking, 45 minutes of drinking our body weight in iced tea and 5 minutes waiting for the bus.
Why incense? Incense plays an important role in the Vietnamese spiritual life. It is used in temples, pagodas, shrines and other worshipping places. Every Vietnamese family has an altar, where they worship their ancestors, this is more common here than paying homage to any of the thousands of gods worshipped worldwide. Burning incense is an integral part of this process as incense is believed to be a bridge connecting the worlds of the alive and the spirits. Khải Định, was the twelfth Emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty of Vietnam. Born on the 8th of October 1885 and dying on the 6th of November 1925 he has been described as, ‘effectively a puppet political figurehead for the French colonial rulers.’ Nice mausoleum though.
As any good tour manager knows you need to have a lot of ‘fillers’ on a city tour, bits of information you can talk about or stories you can tell to fill in gaps between sights. The audio coming through our earplugs had no fillers. Information was given about sights (we usually weren’t sure where they were) and in between there was what Murray called ‘funeral music’, music that might be played at a funeral while you wait for proceedings to begin. Maybe it’s fitting as the risk of death was deemed reasonably high again by either tree to the head or contact with a power line, the closest of which saw me yell ‘DUCK’ to Murray. He didn’t hear me thanks to the funeral music, luckily it missed his head, but only by millimetres. For one of the journeys between sights, the host very helpfully stood in the stairwell just in front of me and pointed out any trees heading our way. The staff probably hate tourists like us. All of the other tourists today chose to sit inside in the airconditioned lower level. But not us. With me deeming the risk of sunburn to be low and our love of the wind in our faces it was upstairs every time meaning the poor host had to be sweating outside making sure we didn’t kill ourselves. Note to self: the sunburn risk is not low in Hue.
(Traditional hats are provided for use while on the bus and sightseeing).
We were settled into the DMZ bar in plenty of time, the place was packed with the lunch crowd and many Australians who were there to watch an AFL game. It took a while after the rugby kick-off for the staff to get the game onto the TV but when they did we enjoyed it with a cold beer and some food. You know what they say, ‘happy husband, happy…’ Doesn’t rhyme with anything so it can’t be too important.
Although Hue hasn’t blown us away like Tam Coc did it’s been worth a visit. Next stop, Hoi An.
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