Hue

Bright and early we left to Hue!!! Half the bus was still drunk from last night partying so it was quite a silent ride!

At around noon we arrived in Hue, went for lunch and then 15 out of 17 of us went on a motorbike ride!

This probably was the most fun motorbike ride so far! Pretty much the whole group came and it was exciting to see a huge line of motorbikes and try to take pictures of everybody!

Our first stop was at a place where an older lady showed us how they get the rice from the husk, how to turn the rice into powder, how to cut the rice and she even showed us how she sleeps and rocks a baby at the same time! The old lady was very entertaining and for sure put on a show for all of us.

At the end she even made some natural "gum" for us! She wrapped some sort of root on a leaf and put lime stone paste on top of it (apparently they even use that paste to put on the walls!) anyway, I decided to give it a try and it tasted disgusting!!!! Not at all like gum!!!

Once again we got into our mopeds and on our way to our second stop we passed many many cemeteries, later our local guide explained that in central Vietnam there is no cremation therefore everybody has to be buried and that's why there are so many cemeteries all over the place! Most cemeteries that we passed looked really old and if it there had been abandoned but the sculptures and crypts in them looked very elaborate and pretty.

Our second stop was the THIEN MU PAGODA, which is the tallest pagoda in Vietnam (not to be confused with a PAKORA!!! which is an Indian food! Hahaha I had to explain the difference to one of the group members while on the tour)

Then we were taken to a very interesting site! It was a big brick fort where in the late 1800 and early 1900 elephants and tigers used to fight! Elephants back then were the main animals to take to war so they used the fort for the elephant to fight a tiger and get trained! The elephants won 99%of the time but I believe it's only because the tigers claws and teeth were removed prior to the fight... Super unfair!!!

Our next stop was at an incense and hat making place! The ladies showed us how they hand make incense and how they dry it. At the same place they make the typical Vietnamese straw hat and we were able to try them on and take a picture!

I kind of fell bad not buying anything but I already had a hat that cost me the third of what they were asking and the incense was too expensive (or maybe I was being cheap... Who knows)

The girls:

Our fifth stop was at a place where the US used to have bunkers during the Vietnam war! We stopped very briefly but we found time to take a picture of the whole group in our bikes :-)

Lastly, we stopped at somebody's tomb!... By then it had been a long day and I didn't care anymore! I just remember that the tomb actually doesn't have a body in it because the body was moved some place secret because they were afraid the body would be stolen! The place looked like they don't take much care care of it and there were zero tourists! The whole place was for ourselves but it was getting dark and we were getting tired so we quickly made our way back to the mopeds and back to the crazy traffic and finally to the hotel :)