Hue - Day 7 - Final Day

Saturday 19th April

After a very late night I was a bit reluctant to get up early, but Matt and I had promised we would go for a run at some point in Vietnam. We had left it until the last day... We left at 6:45 and ran for about 2.5km along the river in the humidity and heat before walking back and checking out what was going on along the river. A very large gathering was occurring, probably something for the Hue festival. A whole lot of boats were on the river but we couldn't really decide what was happening. We went back to the hotel for breakfast at about 7:30.

I had a decent amount of cash to spend before we left the country so Matt and I went for a walk around the streets to see if we could find anything else worth spending money on. Matt bought a couple of T-shirts but I couldn't decide on anything. Check out at the hotel was at 12 so I spent the rest of the morning packing and watching the football until Tom and I checked out at about 11:45.

The bus arrived at 12:30, a lot smaller than had been anticipated. Including the bags, we only just had enough seats for everyone, and I was sitting on the wheel, so I had no space for my legs, with a 3 hour drive ahead...

We drove back to Da Nang over the mountain (last time we went through the tunnel). The view was quite amazing over both sides of the mountain, unfortunately there was a large amount of smog over Da Nang and you could only just make out the city, photos couldn't quite capture the city. One last encounter with tourism occurred at the lookout on top of the mountain, as soon as we got off the bus, everyone from their stores came up to us trying to get us to buy something from their shop. They also tried very hard to rip-off those people that did buy something, taking Singapore dollars straight out of wallets and not wanting to give change.

The back of the mountain near Da Nang

We arrived at the airport at 3:30 pm with half an hour before check in opened. Most of us grabbed a small bite to eat to get rid of the Dong before we checked in and headed through customs into the departure lounge. Our flight to Singapore was delayed by about half an hour due to the plane arriving late. I sat on a window seat by myself near the back, for some strange reason our whole group was scattered all over the plane even though we were booked in groups of at least 5. I slept for about 2 hours of the 2.5 hour flight in the hope that it would be enough so that I could watch some movies on the big flight.

We arrived in Singapore at 10:15 pm and raced through the airport to board our next flight just after 11 pm. I still had $20 Singapore, I had a look for things to buy along the way but again couldn't decide on anything. On the plane to Adelaide I sat with Scott on the window seat again. I was able to fit in two movies before a 2 hour sleep, waking up just before we landed in Adelaide at 8:20 am.

Good morning Adelaide

After passing through customs I found Mum, Dad and Michelle waiting for me to take me home for an hour before heading to the footy again!

This trip has been a fabulous experience for both learning about and enjoying a different country and culture. I would suggest to anyone that may get an opportunity like this to take it up, it really is worth it. I got to know everyone on the trip much better than I had previously which is great for both my professional future as well as my personal future. I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to travel on this trip with, they have all made it even more enjoyable, providing a great source of knowledge as well as (more importantly) being a great bunch of people to talk to and enjoy the entire trip with. (Hopefully my blog will help with everyone's assignments)

I hope you have all enjoyed reading my stories of Vietnam, I look forward to talking about my adventures in greater detail with all of my readers.

Until my next great adventure (hopefully not too far away),

- Nick

Hue - Day 6

Friday 18th April

We had a pretty late night but luckily not as late as others. We were asleep by 11pm and up again at 6. But for the first time we were not the first to breakfast,  some people had obviously wanted to get an early start to finish their presentations.

In our business attire for the final time we all caught taxies to the University at 7:30. Matthee Rofe has unfortunately been sick and has missed the last few days.  He also missed today's presentation.

At the University we all sat with our groups. Our group was the 5th and final group to present.  Everyone presented great ideas and great presentations. I spoke for our group in English and one of the Vietnamese students spoke in Vietnamese. 

At the end, all of the lectures voted for their favourite presentation,  we only found out about this and that there was a prize this morning. Our group (Tom, Carly and myself and three Vietnamese students) won first prize!!!! We won a plaque each (which we can hopefully get through customs).

The winning team

After all of this hard work we all got the afternoon off. We went back to the hotel for lunch at the Japanese place before meeting with our student friends who took us to a market to see if we could get some cheap trinkets. In the end I only bought one thing but it was a really enjoyable experience to go through a proper market, especially with locals. Molly and Scott joined our group for a look. We sat down for a drink with them all and they had bought us some fabulous little gifts.

We said goodbye and then just went for a bit of a rest in the hotel before we left to pick up Tom and Scott's shirts and then meeting the rest of the group. Everyone went out for drinks before moving on to getting tea at a different restaurant. It is now evident that it is really difficult to get good service in a big group. Everyone eventually got what they ordered, it just took a ridiculously long time.

Following tea most of us headed to the DMZ bar to get drinks. People from the group gradually left to go to the Hue festival in the Citadel. The DMZ bar had pool and karaoke so about 8 of us remained there until about 11 pm when we decided to get to the festival. We walked along the bridge that had been lit up with flames in buckets for the festival and to the Citadel.

The bridge lit up

One would have thought that at 11pm the party would be thriving but it seemed the streets along the way were very quiet. At about halfway some people decided to head back to the hotel, the rest of us decided to go and see if anything was still on. It wasn't...

Not many people here

After a bit more of a wander we headed back to the DMZ bar for some more pool, eventually making it back to the hotel at about 1 am.

- Nick

 

Hue - Day 5

Thursday 18th April

Our second to last day of Uni work was spent at the University all day from 8am working on our presentations. As is the Vietnamese way we had a 3 hour break from 11-2 where everyone from Uni SA (in dribs and drabs) had lunch at the same place.

Studying hard

Our group progressed very well and we finished most of our presentation at about 4:30. Tom, Carly and I worked a bit more on it back at the hotel just to tie off some lose ends.

A group of 8 of us (after we kept running into people on the way to pick up some shirts that for the 2nd night in a row were still not ready) had tea at a restaurant none of us had been to. It was reasonable but very slow.

I stopped by the tailor on the way home again and my shirt was finished but Tom and Scott still have to wait until tomorrow.  Carly joined us back at the hotel for a final run through of the presentation before we all headed to bed, a bit later than we wanted to at 10:15.

Tomorrow is our last full day, after the morning presentation we are free to enjoy Hue!

- Nick

Hue - Day 4

Wednesday 16th April

We managed to get an extra hours sleep in this morning before we left on a bus at 7:50 am to pick up the students from the University.

We then headed to the first of two Imperial Tombs. It was quite an impressive site, built as the burial site for Emporer Kai Dinh on the Chau Chu mountain. He was the last Emporer of Vietnam only just under 100 years ago.

Kai Dings Tomb

The second Tomb we visited was a much larger area as it had served as a second Imperial city during the reign of the Emperor that is buried there. It was also much older and not in as good condition as the first tomb.

We spent about an hour at each place (which were about 15 minutes away from each other) before catching the bus back to the hotel for the standard mid-day break from 11-2. Tom, Scott and I were joined by Lachie for lunch at a place recommend by the hotel and others who had been there. I had 'Potato Wednesday' (an Edwards family tradition), which was not quite the same as home but still edible.

We picked up the students again and went on another bus tour, this time more planning focused than tourism focused. We saw where the city has planned a massive, massive expansion.  Evidently this development has failed so far probably because of the scale of the plan. They are expanding for more population than there already is in Hue!

Failed Development areas

Following this drive through we were lucky enough to visit a fishing village. The contrast of housing and conditions between the rich and the poor.

Fishing area

Since we were near the beach we visited an area by the sea that had been wiped out by a storm in 1999 and then rebuilt. We were able to go for a swim if we wanted. Most elected not to while some including myself decided to just dip our feet in.

At the beach

This was the last place to visit so we headed back to the hotel where we had a short debrief and about an hour to relax before a group of is went out for tea at 6:30.

Tomorrow is a whole day of studio work with the Hue Students.

- Nick

Hue - Day 3

Tuesday 15th April

The second of our early mornings and Tom and I were first to breakfast again. We had to be ready to get taxies to our study sites.

We met up with the students in our groups, our site was a street that is a potential site to be improved to promote tourism. A lot of discussion from the Vietnamese students was comparing this area to Hoi An and how it could potentially be like Hoi An...

Today's visits were really interesting as we got to talk to some of the local people and go into their homes.  We were able to interact better with all of these people and got a great insight into their thoughts thanks to the students and professors we were with.

One of the houses we visited

One local (who must have assumed do to the make up of our group that we were government people) came up to us to complain about the lack of community involvement in a particular project which ended up having to be redone anyway because the original plan did not work. This was an interesting topic as we had been told by the Da Nang University that all of the developments that are carried out are what the people want, and also community engagement is carried out. We were always skeptical of this comment, believing we may have been presented a bit of a front to what actually happens.

Rice fields in Hue

It took a while to get talking to the students but eventually we all sat down for a drink and got some ideas down as well as asking things about them. Tom, Carly and I have 3 Vietnamese students in our group. One can speak English very well, another is pretty good and the third doesn't say much and possibly doesn't know much English.

At 11am we parted ways for a 3 hour lunch break. Tom, Scott and I went to the Japanese restaurant around the corner from the hotel before having a bit of a rest and then heading to the University for more discussions in our groups at 2 pm.

This process of working in groups was a lot harder than I anticipated.  It is difficult to get the opinions of the Vietnamese students because of the language differences but also possibly because of what they have been taught compared to what we have been taught.  They seem to always want to move to a Western way of planning, but we have seen how that has evolved and some of the problems with it. We beleive that there are many ideas that we can take from them but it is so jard to get these ideas when they are set in their ways. It is probably a similar experience in reverse for them.

After Uni a group of is headed to a supermarket recommended by the students. We got some really cheap food and snacks before heading back to the hotel to relax. We went out for tea at 6:30 with a few others at a place that had been recommended to them. Following tea the girls all had to pick up some dresses from the tailors,  so us boys decided to get some more shirts.

The supermarket area

The people in the shop were pretty chatty so we ended up waiting around talking about Vietnam and Australia until the girls were all finished.

Tomorrow we have a day of field trips to various tourist sites with the uni.

- Nick

 

 
 

Hue - Day 2

Monday 14th April

Tom and I were the second people at breakfast this morning at 6:30 am. The variety is similar to that in the Da Nang hotel.

Everyone was ready to go in their business attire at 7:30 when we caught taxies to the Hue University of Science, a $1.50 fare away.

This week we are working with the students all week unlike in Da Nang where we only saw them for a day. This first day was still formal but was set out differently to Da Nang.

We sat through 5 lectures from 8:00 until 12:00 including some morning tea and meeting the students we will be working with. The language barriers and the translations for the lectures made the morning stretch on a bit but I think everyone got something out of it.

Tom, Scott and I grabbed a quick lunch before we had to be back at the hotel at 1:30 to leave for the afternoon tours with the Uni students.

Despite the numerous tempting offers to ride on the back of the students bikes, our insurance won't allow it so we caught taxies to a spot where we met the students before looking at some traditional Vietnamese Garden houses. The hot sun and humidity did detract from the experience but looking back it was interesting to get a hands on look at one of the topics discussed in this mornings lectures. 

Traditional Vietnamese house

Following the Garden Houses we headed to the Citadel. The citadel is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was home of the Emperor from the 18th century until about the Second World War. We looked around the massive site which was a different experience to big sites in Europe. There seemed to be little structure to where to go and to what to do. Luckily we were in a large group and being guided by the Hue University lecturers.

Me and Matt in the Citadel

It was a long day so I probably didn't take in as much as I could/should have. We left the Citadel at about 5 pm, some caught a taxi but Matt, Marty, Molly and I decided to walk back. We were joined my Matthew and Jon Kellett who led us around the outside wall to where there was some informal housing on top of the wall.

Informal housing along the wall. Note the piles of rubbish dumped out the back.

 

Back at the hotel we had a brief meeting at 6:30 before heading out to tea at a bar called DMZ Bar. They even gave us 10% off because they liked us (apparently but they probably do that for everyone).

We headed back to the hotel for an early night ahead of another big day of Uni work tomorrow.

- Nick

Hue - Day 1

Sunday 13th April

Today was our official day off to do whatever we please in Hue. Some people woke up at 6am to get on a tour to the De-Militarised Zone, others decided to wander around the streets. The majority of people decided to stay back for a sleep in and to complete our first written assignment that is due tomorrow morning.

I was one of these people to stay in the hotel for most of the day. Unfortunately our room is located right next to a large air conditioning unit, which someone decided to turn on at 5 am this morning. This interrupted my day off a bit but it didn't matter, as long as it doesn't turn on in the middle of the night when I don't have a day off.

My morning consisted of finding the best way to watch the crows game. Eventually I decided the only way to do so was to buy an online subscription for a week. None of my devices actually supported the thing that I payed for, but luckily Scott had an IPad that I could borrow that the stream did play on so he saved the day.

Tom, Scott and I went for an early lunch as we had all missed breakfast, but when we reached the restaurant the footy was about to start so I headed back and snacked on some Oreos I had bought the other day.

The Crows won, and the stream worked a treat for the majority of the match so I had a fantastic day!

Hue

I got a late lunch with Matt after the footy at a Japanese restaurant around the corner before heading back to do my assignment. Tom, Scott and I sat in our room for the afternoon slowly chipping away at the journal.

At 7 pm the whole uni group met up for a bit of a briefing for the week before a group of us got some tea at an Indian restaurant around the corner.

Tomorrow we start a run of early mornings where we will be spending most days at the Hue University.

- Nick