Hue Day 1

On arrival in Hue I avoided the touts and chose the furthest taxi from the station entrance which took me to the hotel for  a very reasonable 50 000 Dong. Not very far but as we passed many other pleasant looking hotels I was wondering whether I had made a mistake in paying a high price for the Hotel Saigon Morin. As soon as I arrived my concerns were banished. If you want old style luxury in the Raffles &  E&O style for a reasonable price this is the place to come!

Hotel Saigon Morin

Long Corridor

The room is beautiful; WiFi works a treat and there is bowl of fruit. In fairness "Beautiful Saigon" also provided a bowl of fruit. Hotel Saigon Morin proclaims its heritage loudly with "since 1901" emblazoned everywhere. Like many of these "heritage" hotels it is a bit of a fake. Just about the only continuity between the 1901 hotel and the present  one is the plot of land it is on. In the 1950s the building was taken over by the University of Hue which remained until the 1980s. Then it returned to being a hotel but a budget one aimed at backpackers. When it was transformed into an upmarket hotel in the 1990s it miraculously added another floor and repeated the process sometime after 1998. So now it is four floors rather than the original two. But for all that it is a lovely place to stay! 

Went out for lunch in a place nearby, An Dinh Vien which I found by accident.. Housed in a lovely traditional mansion i confess to beong lured in by the very charming lady in charge and ordered some Hue style spring rolls pork wrapped round sugarcane and a Huda beer. The food was excellent, generous portions and the beer was cold. It wasn't cheap by Vietnamese standards coming to about 120 000 dong, <US$6 for a feast!. It's in Trip advisor with very mixed reviews; one review omplains that it is overpriced but it seems on a par with other places aimed at tourists. 

Restored mansion Housing An Dinh Vien Restaurant

Hue Style Spring Rolls and Pork on Sugarcane

And a Huda Beer

The lady in charge? with her baby

Returned to the hotel to relax and chill out. Set out later to look at the Citadel which I visited before about 5 years ago. It looks better at night. Created by the "emperors" of Vietnam when they were little more than French puppets, it was intended to be Vietnam's answer to the forbidden city in Beijing. Maybe it succeded but war has massively damaged it and I was not that impressed when I visited before. Floodlights work miracles!

Vietnam laying claim to its Offshore Islands.
In Hue station they also display maps showing the islands as part of French Indochina

Perfume River in Hue

Citadel

Part of Hue Citadel outside the Ramparts

For my Book Loving Friends

Haunted House in Hue? 

According to Trip Advisor the best bars in Hue are DMZ and Brown Eyes, both less than 1 km from the hotel and in the same direction. First one I reached was  DMZ which didn't look very lively so I walked on to Brown Eyes. This is obviously where all  the young backpacker crowd hang out. It was heaving with a large crowd dancing at the far end of the bar. The two guys closest to me looked like they had just jumped off a Viking longboat but seemed content to drink beer rather than go on a spree of rape and pillage. I had a Huda beer and wished I was 25. Not many times I have wished  to be 25 again bu this was one of them. If you are under 40 in Hue Brown Eyes is the place to be.