Hue - ancient imperial city and culinary delights

After freezing enough in the north of Vietnam, we are slowly making our way south. And I mean that literally, because supposedly there are very comfortable sleeper trains. However, booking is not as easy as with the Deutsche Bahn app. Although there is an official website of the Vietnamese railway company, it tends to crash during the booking process. So we decide to go to the train station to buy the tickets directly for Hue. This is how we end up in the manager's office with some other Europeans, while the lady behind the desk serves everyone at the same time, which means you have to wait forever. Eventually, we have our tickets and are excited about the overnight train to Lissa..uh, Hue.

Our 4-bed sleeper cabin is half occupied, a young couple has made themselves comfortable here and both are enjoying their strongly smelling dinner. Wonderful. The air conditioning is relentlessly booming right above my little bed - sometimes we feel here in terms of size like in a doll's land - so that I am freezing again. The best conditions for a relaxing night. Fortunately, our fellow travelers soon get off, so we can spread out on the lower beds, as far as possible.

6.30 am, we're here. After leaving behind a group of pushy taxi drivers who demand three times the normal price, we take a taxi of our choice to the hotel. The Hue Garden Villa, with a very nice swimming pool, which unfortunately is not warm enough yet, is a nice hotel in a small side street, we get coffee and check in. The cold from Sapa is still in my bones, so I borrow a heat lamp and let myself be heated.

Hue is known for two things: the Citadel, the ancient imperial city, and culinary delights. These include rice pancakes, skewered meat, and rice pudding served in small bowls. So today we follow our traditional behavior pattern: arrive, check in, look for a restaurant. We consult the travel bible, which recommends a very delicious traditional restaurant to us. Here I even get something to eat, which unfortunately is not taken for granted, because in Vietnam the diet is extremely meat-heavy.

We only like Hue as a city to a limited extent, because there is mainly traffic here, a lot of traffic, some shopping streets, and tourist restaurants. So the next day we extensively visit the Citadel. We walk, because that's what we like to do to get to know a new city, and fend off countless tuk-tuk drivers who seem to be completely bewildered that we use our legs as a means of transport.

We cross the gray river and find ourselves in a sea of flowers. Not quite natural, but sellable, because here one flower seller follows the next. New Year is approaching, a festival in which flowers play an important role. On the one hand as decoration, on the other hand as lucky charms, because many locals plant an orange tree for the new year. So not only here, but in many places in the city, a strange contrast emerges between booming mopeds and cars emitting stinky black smoke, lined with countless fragrant orange trees that take up the entire sidewalk.

We visit the ancient imperial city, which consists of more or less well-preserved historical buildings. Behind the gates, there seems to be a party going on, as we are blasted with loud karaoke sounds. Old meets new.

The next morning, we say goodbye to Hue and look forward to our next destination: Hoi An.