Hue Day 2: Perfume River

There are a number of Tombs and temples along the Perfume River, and plenty of tour companies trying to get your business. They all more or less do the same thing, but some better than others. We opted for one of the $5 trips that included lunch and the boat… we should have gone for the $7 one.

While we were waiting on the boat to leave, an incredibly grumpy and sour girl came around with a menu trying to sell us lunch, even though we had lunch included. Everyone was confused and didn’t get much of a response from the girl when asking about it. Lunch was still included, they were just trying to get more out of us, not giving us much confidence for lunch!

At first, our “guide” was pretty useless. He didn’t give us much info and didn’t even enter the first few places we visited. Yet other groups we saw on similar tours had their guide the whole time, giving them great info and making jokes. I think he actually heard someone complaining at one point and suddenly picked up his act a bit!

At lunch, the waitress was even more depressed. She attempted to split all the locals away from the Westerners, even though we all wanted to sit together. It was like sitting at the children’s table at a family dinner, even our table and chairs were smaller!! She practically cried when a few people stood up, saying how ridiculous it was and switched seats around. Crazy bitch.

Anyways, apart from the crappy tour, some of the Tombs are impressive. Thien Mu Pagoda is free entry and holds the 2nd Largets bell in Vietnam! Of the Tombs you’ll have to decide what you want to see as most have entrance fees. Although its actually quite cheap, when your in SEASIA your perception of cheap changes drastically I went into the Tombs of Tu Duc and Minh Mang, while Khai Dinh and Miu Temple are also reccommended.

We also stopped at a couple of shops where they make Conical hats (those infamous Vietnamese cone hats) and incense sticks. They were very cheap and quite pushy on selling, but I’m not carrying them around for another few months!

At night we went to a market, it was pretty busy with stalls etc, and they had changing coloured lights on showing off the bridge!

Oh, there’s also a Vegetarian place one street over from DMZ and the new Backpackers hostel! I found “Tinh Tam” just by walking around, its mostly mock meats (as the norm for Veg in Nam) but its very cheap (also the norm! ) pretty tasty and good portions and all/mostly vegan. Easiest veg in the backpacker area.

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