Hue and the bike tour 21 - 24 February

***DRAFT POST - MORE TO FOLLOW***

Country - Viet Nam
City - Hue
Est. Population (Huế) -

1,119,800 (2004 Census)

Time to leave Ha Noi. We stayed longer than expected. I had budgeted about 3-4 days but ended up staying close to a week. If you read the Ha Noi posting you would know this already. However, never going to be disappointed about that fact. We had so much banter there. Mostly booze-related activities and some days seemed a little living in a groundhog world but if I could change anything about that week I wouldn't.

So we organised an open bus ticket to travel around Viet Nam. So this gave us tickets to everywhere we wanted to go: Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang and Ho Chi Mhin (aka Saigon). We organised this from the Cork guys (Shane, Joe and Danny by the way) hotel. The bus left at circa 19h00 and would arrive into Hue some 12-3 hours later. We were seriously tired when we got to Hue, I don't sleep very well on buses, despite all the Vodka we drank. Unfortunately this would tend to reoccurr throughout my bus tours in Viet Nam. So we got to Hue at about 08h00 in the morning and intended to stay one night.

If you don't book a place to stay in Asia that is never really an issue. The locals know when the buses will arrive so they are ready in wait. We organised a place quite rapidly and before we knew it we were on our way to a hotel on a bus with a motor biking dude as the guide for directional purposes. The room was fine, two beds which Shane and Joe would share the large and Danny would have the single. I had a mattress on the floor which I volunteered to take, just didn't really care where I slept, only one night after all.

We went to find some breakfast after getting into our room. Looked at a few menus but decided we could find better. We didn't want to take the first available option - that would be too easy. Then these local guys said they would take us to this local Vietnamese place on their bikes for free so we agreed. The food was fantastic, arguably the best I had in all my time in Viet Nam and so reasonable price wise. While we were there the guys who couriered us there explained that they organise tours going from Hue. The tour loops west inland in a boomerang fashion and ends in Hoi An three days later. In totality, two nights and three days of motorbiking in the countryside.

It didn't take look for us to be convinced despite the price which was 60 USD per day. I was sceptical, espcially considering budget but in retrospect it was worth every cent. So we paid a deposit and said we would meet at the same place at 08h00 the next morning. After that we bought some copy dvds, both Danny and Shane had dvd players. We started to watch a movie but sleep overcame me. When I woke I went for a stroll around this small city. The guys slept on for ages..

We went for drinks then but nothing hugely important to note, drank some beer, played some pool. We did meet some decent Austrians (Paul and Phillipe) who were hanging out with a German guy (Daniel). After we had drinks we got a sort of Tuk Tuk, cycling style, with locals at about midnight and ate some food with them.

Next morning we met, as agreed, at the local Vietnamese 'restaurant' with the guys who were to take us on the trip for the next few days. We didn't bother eating as we had eaten at our hotel.

People, I know I am going to fail miserably in my attempt to convey how good this trip was. In all my travels around the globe this is now the stand out feature. Usually I'm quite against bikes for my own personal reasons which I do not wish to discuss here but this trip was simply amazing. Five bikes, four Irish guys and one girl from the Isle of Man. Five drivers (one driver and paying tourist per bike).

It was so very hot, baking in fact. The first day I think we must have biked about 80km. I think everybody was chatting to their drivers at some point but I had a great time with my driver and we were chatting almost constantly on the bike. Hieu (pronounced you) was such a great guy to be on the bike with, my experience of this trip - obviously - could have been different should I have had a bad driver. In actuality they were all good people. No issues.

I'm not even going to try break this down into a day by day recollection of what we did and where we did it. The days became meshed into one other. No actually. Each day was even better than the last and it is difficult even saying that because the days we spent were arguably the greatest of my 26 years and 207 days of existence up to that point. Seriously. Not only of my travelling life but of my life entire. So, we motorbiked from Huế which is close to the coast in Viet Nam and went inland close to the Laos border. The road we mostly used was the Ho Chi Mhin trail, the road built in honour of their great twentieth century revolutionary.

The landscape was breathtaking. Forgot Ireland. Forgot Niagara Falls. Forgot everything you know about beautiful if you haven't seen this. And if you have seen the 'off the beaten track' magnificient magnificent will understand what I'm trying to write about. The scenery made me fall in love with this country. I will be back next year at some point without a doubt. I told Hieu I will be back next year and have his contact details for a trip North instead of West. I know I won't be disappointed.

Two main points of remembrance stick out in all our minds - for those of us whom were on the trip I mean of course - is: 1) When we stopped off at a waterfall and went swimming; and 2) The locals who are incredible. I continuously would say tiếng chào (phonetically sing-jao) to everyone. Hello. If they didn't wave back at the western guy on the bike I either got a smile or a nod from older people which is an acklowledgement in Asian countries. I must have said tiéng cháo to about 200 people over the course of our three day adventure.

So, in essence, we did alot of biking over the course of the three day trip and stopped off to photograph the views, which were out of this world. We typically started the day relatively early at about 09h00, after breakfast. We biked the trail and had so much banter, it was such a laugh.

PEACE,

Liam O'Connor, travelling hobbit