Blogging Pubbitch

Yesterday and today, Holly and I have been seeing the sites around Hue. The first day, we managed to travel independantly without relying on any Vietnamese. Wonderful. We saw the Thein Mu Pagoda, which has the car of an immolated abbot parked up behind the temple, and overlooks the Perfume River. We saw the monks praying, and that was an unforgettable sight.

We also took the time to look at some of the royal tombs scattered around the area. These turn out to be large landscaped parks, dotted with trees and pagodas rather than big piles of rock, and they are peaceful and quiet. If you are ever in the area, go and take a look at at least one of them (though the 55,000 dong entrance fee may discourage you from seeing more than one) We also made it to the beach nearby, and were the only westerners there, despite their being a reasonably large number of Vietnamese enjoying their weekend and school holidays.

Today we went on a tour of the DMZ, starting at 6 in the morning. Amazingly, we both managed to make it up in time. Though that tour started shakily, when the guide joined us an hour or so in everything fell into place. We've learnt more about the various wars that have been such a feature of this country's past, we've learnt a Vietnamese joke (and it's a pun! Even better!) we seen the tunnels that the VC used to use, we've seen landscape still scarred by the overzealous use of Agent Orange, and we've had a thoroughly enjoyable and educational day.

After the trouble and grief this place has given us, these past two days have been a ray of light. We're leaving here for Hoi An tomorrow, but we're leaving with the hope that things will continue to get better.