Hue Hanoi Express - December 14th

On the face of it our last day of cycling is easy, a 25km journey around Hue visiting a few of the sights.  However it turns out to be quite an experience because of the fact that we are cycling through city traffic.  Even the busy NH1 route wasn’t as big a challenge as everything on it, even us, has right of way, but here you really have to keep your wits about you to look for all the traffic coming from all directions.

The tour itself takes in 3 main sights.  The first one, the tomb of Tu Duc, one of the 19^th century rulers of Vietnam.  It actually is more than a tomb, as he chose to live here after it was completed, so it is really more of a palace, and it is quite an interesting place to look around, even if it is raining again.  The second sight is the Citadel, the main fort at the heart of the town.  This would have been up there with the tomb, and even Topaki Palace and Agra Fort, had it not been for the war damage.  It was still quite interesting, and there were some unusual items, such as the large urns, to look at.  The final part of the trip is a Pagoda, and this is where we say goodbye to our bikes for the last time.

To get back to the city we take a pointless boat journey down the river, pointless because it is so cloudy we can’t see anything, but I’m not sure what there would be to see even on a sunny day.  We then get back to the hotel and shower, because the rest of the day is to be spent on the overnight train from Hue to Hanoi.

The train arrives an hour late, which doesn’t bode well, but once on board we break out the alcohol, crisps, and have a good chat while the countryside passes by in the dark.  We actually are making up time which is not good, because the train is due in at 5am, and every minute it is delayed will be an extra minute’s sleep on what prove to be surprisingly comfortable beds, although the train itself rattles along, causing our pile of empty beer cans to make some interesting noises in the night.