Brrrrrrooooomm!

Free from the tyranny of eggs, we went for a Vietnamese breakfast the way it should be: noodles.

Having seen the Imperial City the day before, most of what remained to see nearby was further than walking distance, so we decided that the traffic here was sane enough to hire a moped. Great fun! And the traffic isn't that bad once you get into it. You just need to go with the flow, and behave as if you are walking rather than driving: you might be heading straight towards someone, but you just need to change your direction slightly to miss them; none of this stuffy signalling or rules regarding right-of-way. The first attempt to get petrol failed though. I watched people getting fuel before us, and the guy in front got what read 2000 on the pump; it seemed to take a good wee while, and I reckoned it would be enough fuel for one day. So I took my cap of and handed over 2000. The woman with the pump gave me a look, and then squirted about 1 second's worth of fuel into the tank, but the meter only read 200. I was obviously being ripped off; another foreign sucker to take money from! So I tried to object and indicate I wanted ten times as much, but didn't seem to be getting anywhere. The woman seemed quite indignant and was obviously saying something about me to all the other customers. So I stepped back a bit an watched the next customer. Sure enough he only got about 1500 of fuel, but then I realised my mistake when he handed over 15000; the machines have obviously not kept up with inflation so they've just dropped one redundant zero. I stepped forward and bashfully handed over 20000 and was rewarded with a "at last you get it" face and a tank nearly full of petrol. Of course you could argue that this would all have been quite obvious if I'd only done the maths and worked out that the first time I was asking for about 8p of fuel, after all this is petrol we're talking about, not pick'n'mix ha'penny chews.

Thien Mu Pagoda

First stop was the Tien Mu Pagoda, not far along the Perfume River from the Citadel. It was originally built in 1601 when a Fairy Women (Thien Mu) told the provincial governor to build one for the country's prosperity. It's been destroyed and rebuilt many times since, and since the 60s has been a centre for political protest; in keeping with this, the area behind the pagoda houses the car driver to Saigon by Thích Quảng Đức, the monk who set himself alight there, in protest of President Ngô Đình Diệm's suppression of Buddhism. They also have a huge marble tortoise and a giant bell.

After that we zipped across the city to Nam Giao Temple. It was a bit disappointing, but at least it was free, apart from the moped parking, which we had not anticipated.

Tomb of Thieu Tri

After this, we wanted to see one or more of the mausoleums dotted around the city, but most of them were charging 55000 entrance according to the book and, as we'd already discovered, the prices of some things had doubled since the book was published (in November!), but most had gone up by at least a quarter. On our budget we decided the only one we could afford was the 20000. The only map we had was in the guide book, and we ended up having a rather pleasant tour around the semi-rural suburbs of Hue without much luck on finding it. Just after we'd given up and headed home, we found it. It was closed for renovation, but some of the outer buildings were still open.

Finally we thought we could fit in the house "Uncle Ho" (which they Vietnamese really do call him) grew up in, but we encountered further navigation issues and, although we did see some nice building who-knows-where outside Hue, we completely failed to find the village of his birth.

Banh Khoai

Defeated, we returned to town for some Hue specialities for dinner, following a Lonely Planet recommendation. Same story as the last one: very expensive; they must have at least double their prices since the stamp of approval. So we went up the road just a block or two and found another really nice cheap authentic place instead where we had Banh Khoai; a local speciality, so we had to try it. It's a rice pancake with beansprouts, bacon, Spring onion, and so on, on top. The place we found was a local place for local people, so it was all phrase books and gestures. Most of the local places are actually pretty easy in Vietnam, because they serve only one thing. Most of the street food we've eaten have been places where you just need to say (or signal) how many you want and you get what they do; no menus no choices. Simple! This place was the same. Until then we'd been eating with chopsticks everywhere without much difficulty; noodles, mostly. But these things we really quite difficult to tackle with chopsticks. I had a clumsy bash at it, breaking it apart a bit by jabbing the chopsticks in, but I was sure it couldn't be the correct approach. I had a wee look around the restaurant and watched some other people; they were doing exactly the same thing. The real problem is that chopsticks aren't the right tool for this; what you need is a knife and fork. Especially the knife.

Hue, Vietnam