Imperial Hue

A woman sold us this Vietnamese hat for 1$ in the street. Came in very handy that day...

We came to notice that on a trip this long it's impossible to always make the absolute "best" decisions. You come across so many places that some of them just got to fall into the not-a-must-see category. I don't necessarily mean these places aren't worth visiting, but just less exciting, I suppose. Well as you might guess, Hue was one of those places. Against all the advices we went for it, telling ourselves it was just too conveniently on our way to skip it! 

Today the city of Hue itself isn't more than a regular Vietnamese town with couple of entertaining tourist streets and a river front, but it used to be an important imperial capital. The remaining of its ancient citadel along with other historic sites around it are the reason people pin it down on the map.   We chose to stay two nights, which left us with one full day to visit its monuments. One day's actually quite enough for the area, especially if you just visit the main things. We made the mistake of not renting bikes, which would've allowed us so much more flexibility when it comes to getting around the entire area...so we were kind of limited and hot by foot (plus taxis won't cost you a fortune, so that's always a good rescue). 

On a positive note it was a Saturday night and we had a fun night out with fellow backpackers and locals in one of the bar/ clubs, so in the end of it we didn't really regret passing by Hue ;). But honestly we felt that if you're short on time in Vietnam, you could probably use your time wiser. Then again, isn't that the beauty of long-term travel anyways? You can actually afford to "lose" a day or two and come out that much smarter! ;) 

{All pictures © Voyages of Discovery}