Hue

We flew to Hue on Wednesday night and it is such a relief from the busy streets of HaNoi.  There is only 350,000 people here instead of the 6 million in Hanoi.  You can actually walk down the streets without a single vehicle or sound.  Hue used to be the capital city of Vietnam during the French occupation.  The architecture is very french colonial and many of the local and tourists speak french. The Perfume River runs through the city.  There is no longer any odor to the river but the water used to be fed by the mountains that had a lot of gingsing in it hense the name perfume.  This morning we took a boat ride up the perfume river to see a famous Pagoda's and the Citadel and Imperial City.  Our guides have been excellent and give us a lot of the historical background.  The poverty is still evident along the shores of the perfume river.   Some of the poorest families live on these tiny boats with 5 members in their families and the kids do not go to school.  Instead they help their family drudge the bottom of the Perfume River for sand for construction.  A sad site  indead but the children always wave to the tourists and have smiles.  In the afternoon visited more temples and mausoleums of former kings. One of the kings had 500 wives and 170.. children.  The gene pool must have been small!!   We ate in the Imperial city at this beautiful restaurant on an outdoor court yard.  This restaurant had a set menu for $10.00 US.  The presentation of the food was amazing.  Our first dish was tiny spring rolls stuck into the side of a pinapple with decorative carrots shaped resembling a peacock. We watched the sky light up with heat lightening and then 3/4 of the way through it started to pour rain so the staff lifted our table and brought it under their front entrace so that we were out of the rain.  The hospitality has been amaing!  and the food has been fabulous and cheep.  Our most expensive dinner was $15.00 US each including a glass of wine.