A Visit to Hue

Our brief visit to Hue was a nice respite from Hanoi. Hue is a much more relaxed city, as its location along the Perfume River suggests. It is easier to get around on foot and motorbike, with a delicious cuisine specific to the area. It is known as the Imperial City because it was the seat of the Nguyen Dynasty in the 19th and 20th century. As such it is home to many temples, royal mausoleums and monasteries. It more closely resembles what we thought Vietnam might offer us, a tranquil and exotic setting among the vestiges of a magnificent past. It is also where US soldiers spent there R&R and came under massive bombing campaigns as the war progressed (photo above is a composite of a US gun turret and the street it looks out on).
Liz was down south to visit a Save project area in the Quang Tri province. For myself, it was an awesome time to explore the countryside by motorbike, finding random crumbling temples and cemeteries that were being swallowed by jungle.
The market food offered delicious dishes like banh khoai, described in our guide book as a crispy yellow pancake of egg and rice flour, fried up with shrimp, pork and bean sprouts and eaten with a peanut and sesame sauce, plus a vegetable accompaniment of star fruit, green banana, lettuce and mint. There was a great snack known as banh loc, a thin translucent parcel of manioc flour that encases shrimp, sliced pork and spices steamed in a banana leaf and eaten with a rich sweet and sour sauce. I worried though as I sat with a group of truck drivers in the far corner of the market eating a steaming bowl of broth with chunks of a dark gelatinous something. When I asked the guy sitting next to me what it was he pointed to his wrist...yummy mashed wrist tendon perhaps? If so it was not as bad as I imagined, though I imagine he didn't know what I was asking. In any case I have yet to choke up my intestines...so far so good.