Our next stop after Hanoi was to be Hue. The cultural capital of Vietnam, home to many of the country’s most important monuments and the sacred Perfume River. First things first, a 14 hour sleeper bus journey. Thankfully Camel Travel provide their most luxurious bus for this long leg of the open tour and with free wifi, a “western toilet” and surprisingly comfortable beds we thought we were in for a bit of a treat. To be fair for the most part it was fine… but actually thats a lie… vietnamese potholes are giant gorges that your bus usually creeps in and out of as slowly as possible to avoid giving everyone whip lash, USUALLY… We have become accustomed to the jolting, shaking, bumping and bashing that long road journeys put your body through on board sleeper buses, but there was a horrible moment on this most recent trip where, in the dead of night, our driver obviously mistook a giant gaping hole in the dirt-track-road for a nice smooth piece of tarmac, drove full throttle into it and literally flung everyone into the air, only narrowly avoiding orbit because the nice rigid ceiling was their to cushion the blow and throw us back down onto the beds. I think the only reason I slept on the journey is because this actually knocked me unconscious. That’s not even an exaggeration.

We knew we wouldn’t be staying in Hue for very long so we booked onto a city tour to fit as much in as possible. This turned out to be an excellent idea and we were especially happy when the bus that pulled up to collect us was pink with polka dots, so happy in fact that I forgot to keep an eye on the uneven debris lined pavements as we approached it and I tripped on an open ended metal pole, tearing a good inch of skin off of my big toe – some of you may have been lucky enough to receive a snapchat depicting this massacre… like a brave little soldier I wrapped it in some tissue and blister plasters and made “minimal fuss” as the long day of walking went on.

First stop was the ancient Citadel in the old walled town and palace area, a huge protective force that once housed the emperor and his minions. It was one of the stops on the Top Gear Vietnam special episode. The most important Palace in Vietnam is situated here where the ancient emperors who ruled the country lived – unfortunately the part of the complex the emperor would actually have called home was destroyed in the war. We were given some information by the guide and had some time to wander round and take photos of the ruins before being shuffled in true tourist group style to the next stop, an antiques museum. This was only a small exhibition but unlike the artefacts at the Ethnology museum we visited in Hanoi, these were all ancient royal possessions and I’m talking some seriously impressive and expensive looking bed frames, tables and chairs, clothing, weapons, jewellery etc. I hate signs that tell you not to touch things or sit on things because they just make me want to touch and sit on EVERYTHING, especially this one table and chair set that was 50% mother of pearl and 50% SIT ON ME. I didn’t though. Okay, I poked it. Should have planked on it.

Up next was the local pagoda, beautiful views of the river and mountains, once you climb the 10,000 steps to the top (did I mention my toe injury and how much steps hurt it?). The iconic tower of this pagoda isn’t actually the most impressive part of the monument, I thought the back area where the monks live and pray was way more awesome with some lush gardens and pretty gateways and a massive brass bowl full of burning incense sticks. This pagoda was one of a handful to survive the first Vietnamese presidents destruction of many Buddhist residences. It was originally built and donated by a holy woman and is thought of as a holy woman itself now, with five sub towers to represent and protect from/provide for the town the five basic elements. I liked it.

We also visited three emperors tombs. Each one more staggering than the last and all completely different in style. I would quite like someone to go to that much effort when burying me. The first one was a bit out of the way in the forest (home to the ugliest spiders in the world FYI) and was enormous. Apparently from the sky the whole thing is designed to look like the emperors body and up in the head area is where the actual casket is buried, although no one alive knows its exact location. This one seemed quite oriental in style with lots of red and gold curved roofs, dragons carved out granite and carp filled lakes. Jade scratched her toe on a twig, attention seeker. You could probably spend hours in the surroundings here but we were soon moved swiftly onto number two, much more gothic in stature and its dark granite colours, this one is practically carved into the mountain itself and had about five different levels escalating up the mountain face. This is the only emperor tomb in which the location of the body is known and at its pinnacle level is the large stark white gallery hall with incredibly detailed 3d mosaics lining all of the walls leading to the tomb itself. Despite being the smallest tomb (still huge) it took the longest time to construct. No surprise when you see the effort they clearly went to, not just in the decor but also with perfect feng shui, the two opposing mountains framed in each set of archways at the top of the steps of each level, representing two sacred animals, a white tiger and a green dragon – also reflected in the previous tomb by two lakes and two huge carvings. There are definitely some photos of all of these monuments in an album on my Facebook page.

We didn’t actually enter the third tomb as you had to pay for each one individually and most people are satisfied by seeing one or two. The final one belonged to a particularly petite emperor and our friends who did enter told us there some special miniature statues dedicated to his small figure. Slightly disappointed we don’t have any shots of Jade with these…

The tour also stopped off at an incense stick and conical hat making village, not so much a village as a road side stop but I did attempt to make some incense sticks, merely prompting the professional old vietnamese lady to cruelly laugh at and mock me (doesn’t she know about my crippling toe affliction?!?)…

We were then hauled onto a dragon boat (not as exciting as it sounds, just a large floating barge with two tin dragon heads on the front) for the SLOWEST river cruise in the history of slowness, only to be left on the river bank with not much of an idea of which way our hotel was, thanks. Our Australian friend Nick, from the Aussie Torquay in fact, helped us out and soon enough it was time to peel back the makeshift tissue dressing and check out the damage to jades shit scratch… I’m kidding, I’m obviously referring to my savaged toe which I sat on the edge of the bath and cried like a baby about while Jade cleaned it up and then of course took photos and snapchats to send to everyone, never mind prioritising the incredible ancient architecture we had been admiring all day, heres a photo of my gross toe.

So that was Hue. Probably the prettiest town I’ve seen so far. We are in Hoi An now, waiting to go to a fitting for our custom made dresses… Ballers.

Rose x