Hoi An - Hue

Sunday, March 8th

We checked out of our hotel at 10:00am and were collected by our new guide and original driver for the 140km trip up the coast to Hue. The trip was expected to take about 3 hours, but with various stops we eventually arrived in Hue at about 2:30pm

About 20km from Hoi An we stopped at the Marble Mountain, and because we got free parking from one of the local marble shops (!) we had to pay then a visit (of course). We pretended we were interested, which we weren't, and not only because we couldn't fit any of this stuff in our luggage!

Across the road was Marble Mountain, complete with various pagodas, and an elevator to get lazy tourists up to the largest of these. The marble now comes from a site 10km inland, otherwise there would be no more Marble Mountain I suspect.

We passed the 10km Chine Beach tourist development, complete with casino, luxury hotel, villas for sale, and vacant blocks primed for eventual development.

Eventually the private enclave and beach becomes public beach which the Da Nang locals seemed to be quite enjoying.

We turned left and crossed the river by means of the Dragon Bridge (a yellow Dragon shape spans the river in the middle of the bridge).

Da Nang has the reputation for being the cleanest city in Vietnam, and from what we saw of it, we think it probably is. The former much loved mayor implemented a clean-up program in 2006, including getting beggars off the streets, and he was so successful, he was moved to Hanoi to clean up government corruption. Unfortunately, he died of leukemia only recently and Da Nang residents were genuinely saddened.

Away from of Da Nang, and on our way up the pass towards Hue, it was easy to see how the port, air port, and location made Da Nang incredibly strategic during the war. Indeed, it exists because of its strategic location of many centuries.

Half way up the pass and the view starts to become spectacular. Fortunately, there is a tunnel through the mountain range so there's very little heavy traffic at all on the windy road.

At the top there's the usual collection of souvenir shops, cheap restaurants and hawkers.

The top of the pass has clearly been strategic for a long time, and recent conflicts have resulted on a few defensive installations.

Looking north you can see the coast stretching towards Hue, still about 70km to the north.

While we taking photographs a group of cyclists appeared with Spice Road Cycling Tours on their jerseys. They had just had a rest break and were looking forward to the descent on the other side (I know this because I've been in similar situations myself).

They were clearly enjoying this part of their day, although I subsequently discovered that today they were riding from Hoi An to Hue, the same 140km that we were doing in a car. Not an easy day in the heat, with a pass to get over, and with lots of riding in busy traffic!

Near the bottom of the descent the road crossed the railway track, and we and some of the cyclists had to top - a good opportunity to take some pictures and chat with the riders.

We would eventually stop just along this beach for a bite to eat and a visit to the Happy Room.

The guide knew of this place and acknowledged that we needed a break, but not a huge lunch. The place is used by Vietnamese and Thai tourists in the summer (apparently now is not the summer) - it's clearly seen better days, although it has never been 5 star, I'm pretty sure.

The beach looks better on film than in reality, and the life guard tower looks disused.

Once in Hue, we checked into our hotel and went for a walk along the river front. There was a bit of Sunday afternoon activity, but the dragon boat owners were clearly desperate for customers.

There was also a strangely designed restaurant on the water front which wasn't inviting enough to want to have dinner.

Our room was on the 10th floor, and the view from the terrace bar just above was panoramic. Unfortunately, the bar looked closed so we had our first G&T in the 7th floor restaurant.

Our second G&T was in a local bar (full of ex-pat tourists), and our dinner was just down the road. We probably made a bad selection, given that there were only three occupied tables where we were and the faux French restaurant across the road was overflowing - perhaps we'll try the Vietnamese snails and pate tomorrow night.