Sunday, February 23, 2025

We slept reasonably well in the Êmm Hotel Hue. After showering, a good shower with very fast hot water, we go for breakfast. There is nothing wrong with the breakfast, but it is not very extensive, the bread is not crispy, the cheese is not to our taste and the coffee is not special. We see the lady from the bar again from last night, and she greets us very friendly.

At the reception, the guide for today is already waiting, a friendly young man whose name we have forgotten. Today he will show us the citadel of Hue and take us to a market. On the way, he spends a lot of time looking at his phone.

The citadel is not far away, it turns out to be the palace of the last king of Vietnam. It is a very large complex that has been largely restored to repair the damage from the wars with France and the United States. The guide tells us a lot about the history of the last king and about the customs surrounding him and his family, during which he often consults his phone. The entire complex is now accessible, but in the past, before the king abdicated, it was largely a strictly forbidden area. And the women and children who lived there were not allowed outside.
After our visit to the citadel we go to a market, not so surprising to us because we have been to many markets. But we do buy some nuts at that market.

This excursion ends early, we are back at the hotel around twelve o'clock. That doesn't matter because being busy all day every day, like the past few days, is very tiring. We hear that we will be picked up tomorrow at eight o'clock to go to our last destination, Hoi An.
The guide also points us to a good restaurant, close to the hotel. After we have freshened up a bit, we walk to that restaurant, it turns out to be a simple but busy bami restaurant, Dac san so 1. Bun bo hue.
We order two portions of pho (bami soup) and later something with steamed sweet shrimps. Tom is not so keen on the bami soup, but he is keen on the other food; Pia likes everything.
On the way back from the citadel to the hotel we saw a department store and so we walk in that direction, we indeed find the department store. Pia gets a bit of a stomach ache, luckily there are toilets everywhere. In the department store we buy some creams and spring roll sheets (because of the cooking class in Halong Bay) and we look around. It is not that big, and they mainly sell clothes.

We go back to the hotel and rest a bit. Because we want to wash our hair tomorrow, Pia comes up with the idea of going to a hairdresser, we have seen two, where they offer the treatment 'head washing'. It seems to be a combination of massage and hair washing and we don't feel like that, so we'll wash it tomorrow.

In the evening we have a drink in the bar, eat in the hotel restaurant, enjoy the food, have another drink in the bar and then go to sleep.

Written on: 2025-02-26

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