Hue, Vietnam

Overall, I think Hue is a very local and old city.  It reminds me of China from 20 or 30 years ago when it was very much unsafe to be walking alone on the street.

Although there is the palace, so it should be very touristy, it is very different from Hoi An.  One thing we noticed was that there were no women walking alone on the street whether local or tourists.  There were lots of cat calling, made us very uncomfortable.  We saw a man digging through and throwing out a pretty brand new looking purse on the side walk.  Things like that happen in China as well.  Basically he robbed poor girl somewhere near by and was going through it to see what was valuable.

There are these bike rides that we can take.  They first say to charge us 300k an hour, but we bargained for 200k an hour.  At first we didn't want to take the bike ride, but we were wearing flip flops and it felt impossible to walk on muddy/bumpy road for hours before our hotel shuttle would come pick us up.  So, we stupidly hopped onto the bike, which is not really recommended unless you find a trustworthy guide/tour to link to you one of these.  We expected to just ride the bike for 1 hr, but they took us somewhere pretty far and basically won't let us off even when we asked.  They took us around for 3 hours...charging us for 1.2M in total.  I assume that's like a month's salary to them.  We didn't want to argue with them, didn't want to end up having our purse taken and thrown on the street like what we saw earlier.

Anyways, these bike rides are supposed to take you around the imperial city.  There are a couple other point of interests around the palace that they would take you around.  It is kind of a long way to walk around it.  So, it would be nice to take the bike, ONLY if they really let you off within 1 hour.

They kept circling around the area and won't let us off.

They did give us a ticket for free to a museum nearby.

They also made a stop to a tourist shopping area.  Nothing we want to buy though.

We basically circled around this lake 3 times so they can make us pay for 3 hours.

We were quite pissed by the time we arrived at the palace....which was almost 3 hours later.  We could have gotten there in 10 minutes on the bike.  We were upset and it was starting to rain.  So, we didn't go inside.  We just took a few pictures outside and left.

After we finally got off the bike ride, we didn't know where to go.  The streets are dirty.  There are chickens and cows running around.  The restaurants seem sketchy and not very hygienic.  I have a weak stomach.  The last thing I want is to get sick in a not so modern city.

We found a decent look cafe to kill time and ordered some drinks.

The tea came with lime, orange, condense milk, a wood chip, sugar and salt.  We were very confused and asked the staff how to drink it.  They told us to dump everything in.  Ever since I was a child, I was told lime/orange should not be mixed with milk.  So, I triple confirmed with the staff if it is ok to put lime and condense milk into the hot tea.  Their answer was yes.

And this is what happened.  Coagulated milk tea.  I know mixing lime and milk will give you a tummy ache, but I gave them the benefit of doubt.  I took one tiny tip and NOPE.  Not gonna drink the rest.  

So, we ordered 2 more regular coffees instead and that turned our great.  The staffs were really nice to us and gave us free cakes which I didn't eat.  Only Cho ate it as she was starving.  I was quite skeptical of the city and the people.  I didn't feel safe consuming unknown food there.

Our hotel shuttle didn't come pick us up until late in the afternoon at a parking lot near the imperial city.  Turns out there is a bigger and nicer looking cafe that targets Korean tourists.  For some reasons, there are a lot of Koreans there.  There were many large groups of Korean travelling there like a baller.  We should have just stayed at this cafe.  It looks a lot more trustworthy.

Was starving, so I had to order a very much over priced sandwich there before I get on the 2 hour ride back to the hotel.  

I will NEVER go back to Hue/Imperial City.  This part of Vietnam is too sketchy.  I felt like I would get robbed or raped on the street.  Well, I guess I shouldn't say never, but at least I won't go back until it is a truly developed city.  Cho often works in a more rural area in China and she felt China is definitely safer than this Hue city.

Hue/Imperial City is at point 5 on the map below:

Chi