After two days catching my breath in Hanoi I caught an overnight sleeper to Hue. It was school holiday time so I didnt see any of the typical beautiful girls riding to school in there white dresses and long flowing hair. A pity. Upon arriving, a cyclo and a moto driver nearly had a fight about who was taking me to my hotel.... interesting introduction to Hue.
I spent the day seeing the sights, beautiful old building which had been restored to there former glory and that night I went down to the banks of the Perfumed River to watch the final evening of the Hue Festival, which had been on over the past two weeks. There were very few tourist around, but thousands of locals. I took a photo of a joint Oz/Vn project for the festival, two dragons floating in the river eating a lotus flower. Within seconds of sitting down and taking the photos I had every kid between the ages of 1 and 12 hanging off me begging to have their photo taken, wanting to see the photos, laughing at each other and putting on a great show for me. After taking photos of all the local kids I moved on to the street to watch the fireworks and closing performance. Everyone was incredibly friendly and one local girl decided I was her new best friend. In the process of asking her about herself, with our limited communication I asked how old she was, I thought she said she was 12 and thought she was an incredibly mature 12 year old as I would have guessed she was 15 or 16, turns out I miss heard and she was actually 20. I ended up visiting her family home after the show and talking with them for an hour or so. Lovely people. We waited for her older brother, as he was an English teacher and really wanted to be able to talk with foreigners, however he was out watching the football and I didnt want to wait around all night. Another of her brothers drove me home on some other families moto. He thought I was friends with the whole everyone town as everyone who drove past called out hello. As I said they were very friendly people.
The one big annoyance was the constant barrage of "moto, moto", "where you go?", "you buy from me?". But even in that there was fun and laughter, one guy after constant rejection started offering me free rides, which made all the other moto-drivers howl with laugher but which I still declined. As I was walking around town continually saying "no thank you" a guy on a moto drove past and commented that it was much hotter in Hue than in my country. It was hotter in Hue than in my country by about 20 degrees, but I wasnt sure how he knew that. He asked where I was from and then wanted to take me out to lunch and chat about Australia. I had just eaten so we just had tea. He was a farmer from up north, had just dropped his youngest daughter in Hue as she was going on a school holiday trip and was on his way home when he saw me and thought he'd say hello. He told me all about his family - both immediate and those in Australia... When he asked if I had a boyfriend I said yes, that he works in an office in Australia, that I was traveling with a girlfriend who I had to meet up with in an hour..... Those answers seem to make life easier, so thats become my standard story. Is also a great way to escape from someone too.... Anyway he was a lovely guy, we had an interesting chat, then he dropped me back at my hotel and drove back to his rice farm.
I decided to stay only one night in Hue as some of the guys I had met in Ha Long Bay were in Hoi An and Australia were playing Japan the following day and I wanted to watch the game with some fellow Aussies, so I caught a bus 3.5 hours to Hoi An for just $3!
- mose
No comments:
Post a Comment