Central Vietnam

Hue

Hue (pronounced ‘Whey’) is just south of the demilitarized zone during the Vietnam War, and is therefore the first city we visited in ‘South Vietnam’ (although geographically it’s located in the center).

The city was originally part of the Champa empire (from about the 9th century) but was taken over by the Nguyen lords and served as their capital from the mid-1800s to the end of World War 2.

The main thing to visit in the city is the Imperial City located on the northern side of the river. The imperial city is still being renovated, but it still has some interesting architecture. The imperial city had several walls and motes surrounding it.

At one of the buildings, a car dropped off this group of musicians. You can hear them play in this video: (apologies for the finger in the video!)

There were some mausoleums and other tourist places to visit, but we decided not to bother doing that the next day and instead walked around the city. Of course, a trip to the market was on the cards.

Here are some scenes from the city:

Hue had a great atmosphere at night. They block off 5 roads from cars and motorbikes and the restaurants and clubs play music.

We took a 3 hour train ride further south to Danang. We wanted to book a seat, but it was fully booked so we were forced to upgrade to a 2nd class sleeping carriage. It was so cramped – you couldn’t sit up in the beds and we were sharing with a French couple. R and I ended up finding some plastic chairs and sitting in the hallway.

Danang

We only had a day in Danang which is basically just a big city. Our hotel was in an alleyway off a main street. There was a large man’s shop right on the corner of our alleyway and I really liked the mannequins outside:

We took a walk down along the river to see the Dragon Bridge. Unfortunately, we weren’t there on a Friday or Saturday night so we didn’t get to see the dragon breathing fire. However, it was still a cool bridge and Kaia enjoyed the sculptures along the riverbank.

Hoi An

Hoi An was a nice town, but very touristy! It was fine most of the day, but come around 4pm, the tour buses started arriving and it was really crowded at night. Hoi An is an ancient silk trading town. There were several old buildings in the old town dating back to the 9th – 14th centuries.

We met up with our friends the first day we arrived, but it was pouring rain. The kids did a lantern-making class so that we could get out of the rain for a while.

It rained the next few days as well, but we didn’t really mind because we all came down with some horrible illness (Covid?) which kept us all in bed for 3 days. Luckily, we were staying in a really great homestay with a really nice family. Once we emerged from our rooms, the sun came out and we were able to enjoy the town and a trip to My Son Sanctuary. Here are some photos of Hoi An during the day and at night:

There was a lot of interesting street food that you could buy to grill – including octopus tentacles, frogs, quails, lobsters, crabs and various meat:

And of course, I had to try out a couple of the local beers:

We regularly went to a Banh Mi sandwich place since they were one of the few places that had local prices instead of tourist ones. They had the cutest dogs there.

My Son Sanctuary

This was the religious area of the Champa empire and dates from the 4th to the 11th century. It was like a mini, Vietnamese version of Angkor Wat complex. They are still trying to restore some of the temples, but sadly, many of the temples were bombed by the U.S. during the war and are lost.

They also did a cultural show with music and dance.

While in Hoi An, we had to decide whether we were going to continue down the coast and go to Nha Trang and Dalat or whether we were going to fly directly into Ho Chi Mihn City and skip the rest of Vietnam. Since Nha Trang seemed a bit like Surfer’s Paradise in Australia and a few people told us that Dalat wasn’t worth it, we decided to take advantage of cheap flights and fly straight to Ho Chi Mihn. This decision also saved us 2 x 12 hour bus or train rides!