Hue

We landed in Hue, hopped in a cab and called "Cafe on Thu Wheels", pronounced "two", apparently the owner's name. It was listed in the guidebook as having the best motorbike tours of the city...anyway, "Thu" was really nice. The cab driver let us call her and we found her little cafe down a creepy alley in the middle of Hue...

Anyway, Thu's cafe was covered with writing all over the walls of former travelers...she had a Vietnamese version of a pack-n-play right there in the middle of the tables. She grabbed all our backpacks and insisted we sit down to eat...we had fresh fruit salads, eggs, and of course Vietnamese coffee. She then called her motorbike boys who swung around to pick us up within minutes. We each put on a helmet, which I'm honestly not sure would do any good, and were on our way...we merged into a sea of motorbikes, definitely not as crowded as Hanoi, but close. They rode us through these small villages on the outskirts of the city, aligned with rice paddies and workers in the field...we saw an old bridge (built in 1776), and the Citadel, we also stopped at a few tombs...my head was kind of in a fog all day. Between the smog, the noise of the motorbike and my cold/cough I was pretty exhausted...

After our motorbikes dropped us off, we ventured down to the market and sampled some fruits...leechee is quite good, one of the Vietnamese girls called it "rambutan"...looks like scary, hairy strawberries, but delicious...you've probably seen it on martini menus in the states...

We walked over the bridge and found a place to grab lunch where I had the traditional Vietnamese breakfast soup called "pho" pronouced "fur". It's basically a chicken broth with rice noodles and chicken...Mom even you would like it! The restaurant also had a huge sink and a full bottle of hand soap which was so exciting to us all after using instant hand sanitizer all day!

The girls went on to have massages at "My Tuat" spa...lovely name huh? Then we headed back to "Cafe on Thu Wheels" to pick up our backpacks and make arrangements for our next stop...Thu let us use her phone to call a few hotels in Saigon...we booked a couple of rooms, each for $17. Thu's brother stopped by in his taxi to pick us up to take us to the airport...

All in all, was a great day...action packed and downright exhausting, but we successfully squeezed Central Vietnam into the itinerary...