8th of July 2017

We arrived by train from Da nang, in second class for only … I don’t know how much was the better class, but if is not much more I recommend you take it, so you can enjoy the stunning scenery properly. For some reason all the windows are grilled and it felt like being in prison!

We arrived to Hue just in time to enjoy a beautiful sunset in the Pagoda River.

 

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Where to stay

We decided to stay in Thanh An guesthouse, and what a good decision it was!

Although it was a bit tricky to find, the staff is super nice, helpful, in good location (tons of local cool places around to enjoy a coffee) and it is cheap, $8 per night and you can have hot drinks and bananas for free 😉 The only negative thing I will say is that despite of spending 4nights they didn’t let us stay for free or paying just half day on our last day, as our train was leaving at 9pm, it would have been a nice gesture but oh well.
Our hotel rented the bikes for 25.000d per day so we decided to visit the tombs cycling.

Tip of the day: if you plan to see the 3 main tombs and the citadel buy the combined tickets for 390.000 instead of 450.000dongs you would pay separately. We were told each tomb was 100.000 dongs.


Is it possible to visit the tombs by bike?

We did it so yes, but be prepared to sweat like in your life!! It was suuuper hot,we easily did 50km under a sun of justice and the road wasn’t easy either, ups, downs, highways, path… It will test your fitness but we really enjoyed it!!
And the reward was, as the rest of Vietnam, the beautiful views 🙂

Tomb


Tip of the day: we struggle to find decent bikes to rent, having only our guesthouse. However we saw tons of people on e-bikes, if you can rent one would be perfect if like us you don’t have international driving license to get a motorbike.


Citadel, day or night ticket?

Apparently until September, you can choose to visit the citadel during the​ day until 5:30pm or from 7 to 10pm when they do some cultural shows like martial arts, music and fire dancing.

As we arrived at 4:30pm we asked if we could stay until dark as it was way to rush to see everything in 1h but they kept saying no, you needed to buy 2tickets.

As not all the places are opened at night we decided to risk it and entry at 4:45pm. At 5:30 everyone started leaving the premises but we decided to sit/hide and try to sneak out to enjoy the night performances. Weirdly enough we were seen by people in bikes but nobody said anything so it is possible to stay in both with one single ticket!


Tip of the​ day: if you are doubting between day or night I definitely recommend day. There is not enough light to see the buildings, the ponds, the gardens… at night, plus many places are closed, so you won’t be able to see pretty much anything.


Where to eat in Hue

We found a local place in the corner where tons of people stopped to get some food. The are many different dishes and you choose what you want together with a portion of steamed rice.

Coffee in : tasty but super small, to me no worthy

Recommended by the guide minube,we also went to mandarin cafe and this on wheels.to me, both average but fresh food, and reasonable priced, so super over charged for tourists, so good.

As his name indicated, the place is famous for , which are big bowl full of ice cream, beans and jellies. All the desserts look amazing but don’t make the mistake of ordering the brownie as we did! It is just a Tiny, average, expensive piece of chocolate.

If you are after a quick sandwich-baguette, right next to our hostel you can find a tasty one and hopefully pay like locals: 7.000 dongs. I was charged 10k, getting there after the one in Danang for 20k…