We woke up early, packed up our stuff, and said our final goodbyes to our hotel room. I wouldn’t recommend it for other people traveling to Hanoi so I will name it here – The Prince Hotel 1.
We went downstairs at around 6:30 in the morning, and when I got to the lobby I noticed that the lights were off and the door was locked. Not only locked, physically chained shut. I got a little worried until I noticed that an employee was sleeping on a cot right there in the lobby. We rousted him out of bed to unlock the door, and then we hit the streets with suitcases in tow.
By now Kuniko had pretty much mastered the streets of Hanoi, so we had no problem getting to the area to ride the airport shuttle. According to our guidebook there was an airport shuttle run by Vietnam Airlines, and it only cost $2 per person from Hanoi to the airport – a 40 minute ride. Pretty good deal, but apparently they only run a few times a day, and since we didn’t bother to make prior reservations there wasn’t any shuttle around. The place to catch the shuttle was a tiny door in the side of building, but it was closed and we didn’t even realize that was the right place until later. Instead there were about fifty taxi drivers descending on us, offering to take us to the airport. Some were sneaky – they had painted “Vietnam Airlines” on the side of their taxi or minibus and offered to take us. Others were more upfront – they had signs written in English offering shuttle service for as much as $24 per person.
Anytime people with suitcases showed up there was a scramble to try to get them into a taxi, and it looked like we had no choice. Kuniko and I talked with a group of bold taxi drivers that were ready to make a deal. They asked when our flight was and we lied to make it sound urgent – we didn’t want to wait around for some other people to come along. I said we wanted to leave “now”, and the word “now” threw off most of the drivers. One particularly sharp guy knew what “now” meant and offered to take us both for a flat $10. After confirming that it was $5 each for a total of $10, we took his offer and jumped in his the taxi. The other guys looked disappointed and I think they were wondering why they lost out.
Our driver turned off his meter, called into headquarters and probably told them he was going to lunch, then we headed for the airport. The guy was really quiet and didn’t hassle us on price or paying airport tolls – he just took us right there. I paid him in cash as soon as we got in the taxi so everyone still remembered the price quoted, and he did such a good job I tipped him $2 when we got there. That made his day – he gave us a big smile and everyone felt good about the deal.
From there it was a short wait and then we boarded a Vietnam Airlines flight to Hue. Hue was only about an hour away by plane, so it was an easy trip. We arrived at a tiny airport, our plane was the only one in sight. It was raining pretty good, but this let up shortly thereafter, and was the only rain we saw the entire trip.
I had arranged with our hotel in Hue for a pickup from the airport, and a cheerful guy had our names written on a piece of paper to distinguish us from all the other tourists. We got in his car and he took us a short distance to our hotel.
Our hotel was a step up from the last one. I wanted the quality to ramp up as we traveled rather than decreasing. The effect worked out nicely, and we checked into a big room with lots of amenities, right on the bank of the Perfume River that runs through Hue. It was a short walk from downtown, so the location was pretty good.
We had decided to travel to Hue rather than Ho Chi Minh city because it was a famous for two things – the Imperial palace and forbidden city, and also the food. Hue is supposedly the culinary capital of Vietnam, and we wanted to eat it all. We decided to save the Imperial palace for the next day and instead went to get the local version of pho. The Hue version, called Bún bò Huế is much spicier than your usual noodles in Vietnam, and ours was served with vegetables and beef. It was really good, and definitely our favorite soup in Vietnam. For dessert we had some homemade black rice cakes wrapped in banana leaves and stuffed with sweetened sesame powder.
The afternoon was spent walking around town. We visited an interesting supermarket near the Hue sports stadium. It was the newest market we had seen yet, and they had an excellent selection of goods. We bought some juices to drink, as well as some goodies to take back to the room. The place also had a cafe inside with some delicious looking fried foods, but we were too full to order anything. My kingdom for a bigger stomach.
We walked through a street market covered in tarps to protect it from the rain, and some street vendors just laughed when I tried to find a pair of flip flops in my size. One look at my big boots and they shook their heads. Everywhere we went in Hue we could tell that it was a much more popular destination in summer – the way the restaurants and shops were designed and the open air quality of the markets and cafes seemed to lend themselves to hot weather. It didn’t bother us with the clouds because it was still fairly warm.
Once we had walked around enough to reasonably expect to be able to eat something we stopped in at a restaurant for dinner. We were saving the traditional Hue food for the next day, and instead had a six course meal at a nice restaurant called Garden Club. We sat under palm fronds in comfortable chairs, and ate and drank by candlelight. The food was excellent – lots of variety and a pretty good spiciness level. We tried some local beer – Huda, that went well with the spicy dishes.
I paid the bill (six course meal for two with lots of beers = $18), and we walked on back to our hotel, once again stuffed to the gills with food. It was nice to return to a toilet that worked. It’s details like these that are usually taken for granted – now I appreciate a working toilet so much more.
We headed to bed excited and ready to tackle the Imperial palace and traditional Hue cooking the next day.
