Nick - Getting away from Hue

Well, our city tour was great. We set out early and just went for a walk. For breakfast we crashed a local street joint and were immediately surrounded by the locals who sat staring and laughing at our attempts to communicate. I will say this more than once I am sure but the Vietnamese are a wonderful people. Like Hoi An this city was hot so we stopped every half and hour or so for tea and ice coffee along our 6 hour stroll. Everywhere we stopped cute Vietnamese girls would sit down at our table and want to practice their English. It was so hot that I had been walking around in my tank top which according to Mateo was stopping traffic. Apparently no one had ever seen a hairy man before. We made our way back to the Citadel which was the emperors private city and paid the exurbanite fee of $2.50 to enter the purple city where only the royal family and eunuchs were allowed in to prevent tainting of the Emperor's concubines. It was here that we learned that Emperor Tu Doc expected 50 dishes to be prepared by 50 cooks to be served by 50 servants at every meal. And that his tea had to be made from the dew that accumulated on the leaves overnight. It's good to be king! The purple city wasn't too exciting due to all of the bombs dropped on it during previous years but it still held and air of awe when entering. The few buildings that remained were incredibly elegant and inspired me to become a dictator. After our mini-self tour we hustled back to the bus. Another thing to note about Hue is that hygiene is not a top priority. We stopped off for some more phó and the man eating with us used his own chopsticks to serve us our food then wiped them with a rag from the ground and handed them to Mateo to use. Very funny. Thank god we were tempered in El Salvador before this trip. The sleeper bus was rough with the beds being too short for both of us. Mateo suffered through while I traded a short V for his spot on the ground in the aisle way. The whole bus laughed as my shoulders were wider than the aisle but 7 hours into the trip they were all wishing they had done the same. Goodnight all and I will report back tomorrow...