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