Our meals were at Nina's, drinks at Liberty Cafe & Bar (10.000 local beers, good pool table, comfy chairs).
We had allocated a single day for Hue and, in the interest seeing all we could, we signed up for a guided tour via private car. And this was superb. Our guide is associated with our common eatery, find Nina's and you'll find the tour. So, the tour included an amazing Buddhist monastery in the morning and a less impressive but still noteworthy one in the afternoon. The morning one was nestled out amongst gorgeous trees. The first thing that strikes you when entering the area is the amazing calm. All that serenity. If you can shut out the two persistent touts that is. "I haven't changed my mind since the last four times I said no, but thanks for checking".
The monastery was beautiful. There were a few graves for eunuchs which er...started a few 'how do they?' conversations. Thanks google for answering those uncomfortable questions. We were fortunate to see some monks in prayer, their humming and singing combining to create a rich melodical drone.
On to a few tourist shacks, each selling incense, ^ hats and/or paintings. I wandered in to one art gallery and was really blown away with the works. Very beautiful pieces, cleverly crafted. My favourites: one was of an evening scene near water, a real abstract one, where colours and brush strokes combined to create blissful chaos. The second was of two extremely obese westerners passionately waltzing in plush surroundings, surrounded by cigarettes and bottles of booze. Interesting.
Onwards to view a US military outpost. One which looked out over a river that runs out to Cambodia. Amazing scenery.
Then to some dudes tomb. An emperor of sorts, back when the French were calling the shots here. Tu Duc's tomb (thanks google), built 1867. Pretty impressive. He had over 100 wives which strikes me as being rather foolish for many reasons. We saw three tombs whilst here, each with two walls and open ceilings. Each had a picture of an animal and a few Buddhist looking symbols around the place, their purpose being to 'frighten off' evil spirits.
Next up, an old war-camp (mostly completely destroyed), the remains of which looked awful/typical.
On to another monastery. Still impressive and scenic, but lacking the calmness of the first. Perhaps the tourists were taking that away. Still, some impressive buildings.
Finally off to the 'citadel'. The old city centre was surrounded by a fairly impressive wall. We got out of the car and just had a wander to a giant flag pole and to entrance in to something else.
Feeling full from a day of intense exploring we went back to our local eatery. The afternoon flittered away quickly and we were soon on our night train to Hanoi.
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