Vietnam Day Seven: The long haul to Hue

We got up early on day seven to take the really long trek out to Hue. Unfortunately for us, the travel agent recommended going out to Hue and spending the night there, so you don't have to make the long trek both ways on the same day, or flying from Hue to Saigon, but both of those suggestions came after we'd already booked our flights, so we were in for the long haul. The best part of the drive is the Hai Van pass a beautiful winding coastal road that makes the road from Monterrey to San Francisco look like childsplay. Like most of southeast Asia you spend a decidedly uncomfortable amount of time on the wrong side of the road passing other cars and trucks and mopeds and animals and children on bikes, but eventually you arrive in Hue. We had the same tour guide and driver as the day before, so by this time we knew what to expect, which meant probably a little too much time in the little details of imperial successors, a good bit beyond the scope of our collective attention span. But it was mostly interesting and had just enough of the royal intrigue to keep W entertained. The best news was that the we at least drove ourselves off to somewhat better weather. After the Hue Citadel we had a little lunch at the tropical garden restaurant, where we randomly bumped into another American couple from our cruise. It's noteworthy here that we didn't run into that many Americans on our travels, which, given some of the reactions I got when I told people where I was going, isn't all that surprising. After a really tasty lunch we took a little drive up the hill to the Tomb of Khai Dinh, which was the the more visually impressive of the two sites. If you gotta die, I guess I'd recommend building yourself something like this so that people don't forget you, since even a guy like me still knows about Khai Dinh, these many years later. To be honest though, I hope someday if my life warrants a wikipedia entry, it's a little more flattering than his. We took the Hai Van tunnel back into Da Nang, which makes the trip a good deal shorter. We had our guide take us back into Hoi an for a fitting, and ended our night with dinner at the Cafe Can 74 Bach Dang st Hoi An. Of course we managed to make some more friends from down under there, who we promised someday to come visit. How did we meet them you ask? The night before when we were in the Tailor shop a lady grabs me and says will you try this on, you're about the same size as my son. So I try it on, and tell her what I think of it, and ask how much she'd sell it to me for. We laughed for a while about it and assumed our paths would never cross. The next night as we're wandering around looking at menus, trying to figure out where to eat, someone seated at a table says the food is really good, you'll like it. I look up instantly recognize her as the crazy lady who made me try on her leather jacket, and say ok we know we like your taste, we'll come eat here. We chatted with her and her group most of the night and warned them that they should not invite us to visit, because we would take them up on their offer someday. We eventually made it back to the hotel and had a drink at the bar with one other person this time, still mostly convinced that there was nobody else fun staying at our resort.