Hue and Hoi-An

[English version follows below...]
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Nous venons de passer une semaine reposante entre Hue et Hoi-An, deux villes tranquilles sur la côte est du Vietnam.

Hue était la capital de l'empire "Cham", qui est apparu il y a 200 ans. Ils ont construit une grande citadelle, entourée par un grand mur d'une hauteur de 5 mètres, qui s'étend sur 1 km dans la forme d'un carré. À l'origine, il y avait dedans plus de 200 bâtiments, mais aujourd'hui il n'en reste que 20. Nous avons passé quelques heures en explorant la citadelle, puis, après avoir fini notre 'journée de la culture', nous sommes retournés à la ville pour regarder le match de football entre Liverpool et Manchester United. Après tout, c'est important de vivre la culture en toutes ses formes...

Mardi, nous sommes partis de l'hôtel à Hue (où tout le monde était super sympa), pour aller en train à Hoi-An. C'est un voyage de trois heures, traversant des paysages impressionnants - il faut dire que c'est beaucoup moins stressant de voyager en train ici qu'en bus.

Hoi-An est une petite ville sur la côte, avec beaucoup de vieilles maisons et magasins construits au style Chinois. C'est très touristique, avec beaucoup de voyages organisés, mais c'est tranquille et plaisant (si vous ignorez les gens qui vous abordent constamment pour vous vendre des jouets, de la nourriture, des cartes postales etc).

Hier, nous avons loué des bicyclettes pour aller à la plage (elles nous ont coûté moins d'un euro pour les deux). Quand on 'conduit' au Vietnam, il faut le faire comme font les Vietnamiens. Ils ne regardent jamais, ils ne freinent jamais...au contraire il faut doubler et klaxonner continuellement sans regard pour d'autres. C'est de la folie, mais c'est aussi très amusant.

Demain, nous volons à Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City est le nom officiel, mais tout le monde l'appelle Saigon, peut-être c'est une petite rébellion contre le gouvernement communiste?). Nous avions voulu prendre le train, mais y aller en avion n'est pas beaucoup plus cher, et le voyage dure une heure seulement, contrairement à seize heures en train.

A bientôt, Gary

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OK, Carine's finally allowed me to write something in English in this blog, apparently my apprenticeship studying her literary style has lasted long enough...

Have spent the last week doing not a great deal really between two very nice, and very touristy, towns on the east coast of Vietnam, roughly half way up. Both Hue and Hoi-An are firmly on the package tourism circuit (I'm vaguely bemused as to how a group of pensioners from the UK or France ends up on a coach trip round Vietnam, as opposed to, say, Rome), so it's a bit of a change from Laos which was firmly backpacker territory.

Hue had the honour of having by far the nicest hotel we've stayed in so far, all for $10 a night, which was a nice relief after spending two days trekking down from Laos via the hole that is Vinh. When eventually we got off our backsides to actually go and see something, we checked out the ancient citadel which actually isn't really that ancient (just 200 yrs old, ancient by american standards I suppose). Having said that, it was very impressive, especially with the big square with the communist vietnamese flag flying over it and all that kind of stuff. It was also slightly unusual in that to get into the citadel, you had to cross over a moat via a narrow bridge with no pavements, fighting for your space side by side with the thousands of motorbikes coming from all directions. It's not quite stratford-upon-avon here yet, give it another 10 yrs or so.

Highlight of the few days in Hue was obviously taking Carine out for our 5 years anniversary...we celebrated by watching Liverpool demolish Man U 4-1 in a bar called DMZ (the old 'demilitarized zone' from the Vietnam war is nearby).

Moving on from Hue, we're now in Hoi-An, which is a very pretty, and VERY touristy little town a few hours further down the coast. Full of tailors shops, art galleries, restaurants, and more tailors shops. Looks really nice especially at night when it's all lit up by chinese lanterns. It also has to be the place which has the most, if not aggressive, then persistent street sellers in the world (at least in my experience). It starts 0.3 seconds after leaving your hotel ("HELLO, YOU WANT MOTORBIKE?"), continues approximately every 10 seconds after that for the rest of the day ("HELLO YOU BUY POSTCARDS? HELLO YOU BUY PEANUTS? HELLO YOU BUY SHOES? HELLO YOU BUY 3 BEDROOM CONDO SITUATED IN CONVENIENT DOWNTOWN LOCATION?") until you make it back to your hotel. It's not actually that bad, but can wear you down occasionally. I've also found that if I happen to be walking on my own, without the protection of Carine to take care of me, the nature of the goods on sale changes somewhat ("HELLO YOU BUY WEED? HELLO YOU WANT WOMAN?"). Currently I get offered women to drugs on about a 2 to 1 ration, I suspect that a 20 yr old would find this reversed, and if I were to return here in 20 yrs time, I doubt they'd bother with the drugs at all and just go straight for the women option. Just to clarify, my consumerism hasn't stretched further than a baseball cap and a couple of t-shirts so far (hi Mum).

Anyway, off tomorrow to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), flying Jetstar, costs only $10 more than the train, takes 15 hours less, and doesn't arrive at 4am...so not a difficult decision really.

Gary