October 3, Hue, Vietnam
The big outing for the day was a tour of different sites by motorbike. We went to a market, a pagoda, an incense village, an emperor’s tomb, and finally lunch. In the afternoon, we all did our separate things, with Melody and me hanging out in a chocolate house.
After we woke up and got ready, we headed up to the top floor for breakfast. Most of us were there but at different times so we ended up rotating in and out of the same table. After that, we gathered our things for our motorbike tour
One of our group wasn’t able to go, so the rest of us picked keys out of a helmet to determine who our driver was. That done, we donned helmets (and most of us ponchos) and set off. While I did take a couple of photos at longer stop lights, a couple of the group took photos and videos while we were on the road.
Our first stop was a market with people selling fruits, vegetables, meats, flowers, and fish. The fish were in shallow pans with water and still moving around. We then walked around the gardens a bit before boarding the motorbikes again.
The second leg was quite a bit longer, and looking at a map afterward, I saw that we had gone from quite a bit east of the Citadel to quite a bit west of it, pulling into the Thien Mu Pagoda. This is an operational Buddhist temple, and we saw a service happening while we were there. There is a pagoda that is seven stories tall which is so well known that it is the unofficial symbol of Hue.
Our next stop was an incense village. We saw many colorful sticks when we walked up, but Bao said they were for show and would need to further dry before being made into incense sticks. We saw a woman rolling the incense material onto a stick, and some of our group gave it a try.
We then went to the tomb of Tu Duc, who ruled for 35 years. Even though he had over 100 wives and concubines, he did not father a son, so he needed to write his own epitaph, which we saw in a building in front of his tomb.
Our last stop was lunch, where we were served a Buddhist lunch. They were able to coax a lot of umami and flavor out of the vegetables used for the meal.
It was back to the hotel where we thanked and said bye to our drivers. Melody and I decided to go to a café recommended by one of our group. It’s a chocolate shop that has a café in the back. After we finished our chocolate drinks upstairs, we went back down to order some gelato. Having hung out for a while, we went to get some dinner, then finally made it back to our room for the night.
