Journey to Hué

We decided to travel to Hué by train from Hanoi as it was a 13 hour journey and we didn’t want to risk it with bad bus seats. We chose the 4 berth sleeping option on the local train. There are special tourist carriages on the trains that include nicer bedding and snacks + the likelihood of having other tourists like ourselves share a cabin with us. We didn’t choose this option as it was much more expensive and thought the local train will be perfectly fine and no doubt be better than the buses we have experienced. We were discussing all the possibilities of who we might be sharing a room with and the worst always crosses our mind – hoiking, smoking old man? Family of six? Person who doesn’t use headphones and plays their music out loud?

We think we found worse than mentioned above.

On boarding the train, we were stopped by a loud, middle aged Eastern European man with his party of 20 others like himself and were told it was IMPOSSIBLE that we could be in carriage 12 ( even though that’s what it said on our tickets). He told us HE had booked the entire carriage for his loud and annoying group. We asked multiple officials at the station and they very kindly assured us we were in carriage 12, in the very last cabin. It turns out the man had all but one cabin booked.

He took it into his own hands to show us to our room which he made out he had very nicely gifted to us. When we entered our room, with no other room mates we realised we were in the tourist carriage with the fancy bedding and the snacks. Thinking that there must have been some mix up at this point I asked another staff member who for the last time assured us that it was all ok.

The loud group then came in twos to look inside our room and whisper amongst themselves before leaving and telling others to do the same. When they started getting rowdy we locked the door and settled in to the Leonardo DiCaprio movie, The Beach, which was actually quite scary. Three hours later a nice couple joined our cabin in the upper bunks and we arrived in Hue 10 hours later, a lot more relaxed than what we did when we arrived in Houay Xai.

Riding in style by accident 🤑👌

Hué

We spent two days in Hué, the former imperial capital of Vietnam. It is where the last dynasty reigned up until 1945. We wanted to do two things here; visit the Imperial City and try Com Hen (rice with baby clams).

The Imperial City was lovely. A lot of it has been restored as a large majority was destroyed in the war. There are remmenants of original pieces as well as beautiful gardens and ponds of enormous goldfish and catfish.

We tried com hen twice. Once in a small restaurant off a darkened street where we saw a rat in the kitchen and once on Hen (clam) Dune ( Con Hen Island), the birthplace of com hen. This was well of the beaten track and seemed just like a local neighbourhood with no other westerners in sight. The food was delicious and I managed to take a couple of pictures on my phone. Getting the camera out didn’t feel appropriate.

Hué is a relaxed city but we found it didn’t have the same vibrancy as Hanoi did.

Next stop: Three hours south to Da Nang!