People come to Hue to visit the former imperial city or the Nguyen emperors' opulent but decaying royal tombs. We found it to be a good city to just be.
The incessant drizzle and multiple layer worthy temps were quite conducive to sauntering between street side ca phe, nestled in with the men playing Chinese checkers, to a beer or some cracking local food.
The fussy emperors are to thank for Hue's food scene where Bun Bo (Pho's lesser known, spicier sibling), clams, sticky, gelatinous rice flour dishes and trai va (a fig that's unique to the region) are but a few of the stars.
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| Load up that Bun Bo |
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| Com Hen - a real "huzzah" moment |
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| Banh Nam - mmm, so appetising |
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| The trai va at play with Nem Lui |
Now might be a good time for me to justify why our posts have become quite food-centric again. Eating is never just eating in Vietnam. It's a science and an art form.
Many Vietnamese dishes incorporate five taste senses: spicy, sour, bitter, salty and sweet which then correspond to five organs: the gall bladder, small intestine, large intestine, stomach, and urinary bladder. These all also correspond to a balancing of five elements: metal, wood, earth, fire and water.
There's consideration given to five types of nutrients: powder, water or liquid, mineral elements, protein and fat and, of course, five different colours: white, green, yellow, red and black.
And don't forget the five senses: the arrangement of the food attracts the eyes, spices are detected on the tongue, sounds come from a crunch component, herbal aromas stimulate the nose and even touch is perceived when eating something with your hands.
This may all just sound like food wankery but next time you sit down to a Vietnamese feed remember a bit more thought has gone into it than your cheap cut of meat and potatoes in front of the telly on a weeknight.
We wandered around the outside of the Citadel as the throngs of tourists and $6 entry fee (geez that sounds cheap) were enough to deter us. We got enough value watching the men fish in the surrounding moat alongside a couple of Kingfishers and trying to spy whatever else was living in the water.
We also rang in the New Year in Hue. Where last year was spent downing shots of Palinka and a dodgy bottle of "champagne" whilst watching youths run amok, lighting fireworks around the Octogon (link) this one was a little more sedate drinking beers with locals who thought us cheers-ing with 'mot, hai, ba, YOOO!!' was novel until they clicked it was our New Year's Eve. From then it was all "Happy New Year! Happy New Year! Cheer!! Cheer!!" in between trying to ascertain whether Nicola was spoken for or not. It was a different kind of NYE celebration at the least.
NYE celebration dinner was a plate of snails with lemongrass and garlic as, outside of chicken and fish, oc (snails) was the only word Nix recognised on the menu.
We did (sort of) have the intention to see some of Hue's sights but after a couple of hours walking the streets we soon realised it was our kind of place to do SFA and just be part of a city where every day feels like it's Sunday. The real culture of a city or town is always in its bars and street stalls, not the tourist sites. Werd.
