Hue

Hue & DMZ tour

Hue is a city in central Vietnam. It is located next to perfume to river and is split into two main areas. The old city and the citadel in the north side and the newer city including most hotels and restaurants on the south side.

Getting there

We travelled from Phòng Nha to Hue on a bus at 7am which took approximately 4.5 hours.

Accommodation

We choose to stay at Vietnam backpackers hostel due to the deal we got in Hanoi (see Hanoi blog).

The hostel is average, sadly not as good as the Vietnam backpackers in Hanoi but perfectly acceptable.

There is a social area and the hot water works. Unfortunately the rooms are quite dark, small and the bathroom stank. This may have been due to drainage issues as a result of the typhoon and flooding rather than an everyday thing.

What to do in Hue

Unfortunately for us a typhoon hit Vietnam whilst we were in Hue, this led to heavy continuous downpours and flooding.

This made exploring the city difficult, so we decided to book onto the DMZ tour.

DMZ

DMZ stands for demilitarised-zone. It is essentially the no mans land from the Vietnam war. Talk

The tour is a pretty long day and includes stops at:

War museum (including war vehicles)

Tunnels (underground village)

Bridge between north and south

Grave years of soldiers of war

It is really interesting to learn about the history of Vietnam and to understand how the war affected so many peoples lives. Something which really resonates is that this war is modern history, it only ended in 1975 and people who lived through that war are very much still alive today.

Only annoying things are the tour involves alot of driving, each stop is far from the next and you spend a lot of the day on the bus. Lunch isn’t included and there is only one option where they stop and it’s not great.

Indian restaurant

I can not for the life of me remember the name of this restaurant but if you come out the hostel, turn right go to the end of the road and turn left, it’s along that road (sorry).The food was amazing, the naan bread was massive!

Flooding

For us our time in Hue was rather dampened by the wide spread flooding due to typhoon Damrey.

It rained pretty much non stop while we were there and roads were flooded.

Luckily for us it just ruined our visit but for some it cost them their lives and homes.

We decided to only spend two nights in Hue before catching a last minute fly to Ho Chi Minh City to try and avoid the typhoon!

Other things to do in Hue (if the weather is better!)

– Abandoned waterpark

– Try local food

– Get a massage

Abbie’s View

Hue is a great stopping spot to learn more about the history of Vietnam, specifically the war.

The backpackers hostel is nice but the toilets smell a bit.

It’s definitely better enjoyed when there is no rain!