Day Eight

Ready for the transition.

We're headed to Hue today. After 4 days of beach - even though heavenly, we were ready for the change in scenery and climate. There is a certain camp like feel to staying at a beach side bungalow with open air windows, a bug net canopied bed, and a combination shower toilet room (the bathroom was like a large shower, but with a toilet in it). Sand finds its way into everything, and our skin was tired of the sweaty radiant sun mixed with the slippery sun screen. We were ecstatic when we arrived but we're ready to say goodbye. We ate quite a bit of food right at the resort, and it was all very good. They just tacked it onto our hotel bill of which we'd settle up when we left. It made ordering that beer or that appetizer all the more quick and easy and thoughtless. A little worried of what our 4 night's stay here might be, we stopped at an ATM booth in town. (On our hot walk yesterday we noticed an ATM booth, a stand alone structure about 3 times the size and similar in construction to a phone booth, room enough for the both of us, but no one else. We hopped in thinking here goes as the structure was out in the middle of the sun and surely could double as a sauna. Not this delightful little booth. Equipped with a split air style wall-mount A/C this little booth was a sanctuary for sweaty travelers. We pondered over every amount possible to withdraw, even entered in our own amount of which was too high of a number for the machine to withdraw. We were in our own little cooled off world until a local knocked on the door and pointed to the machine.  Apparently he wanted money too. We scurried out, refreshed for a bit.)
Anyways, we took 4,000,000 out and had a total of 4,900,000. Unsure of our damage here at the resort we readied our US dollars as well, surely we'd have enough Jade told me. The bill came - $168 USD. Oh, we're fine! Wow that was cheap, like really cheap!

A quick taxi to the airport and a quick jump back to Ho Chi Minh City (via our tiny propped plane) we had a few hours to kill before we flew to Hue. It went quickly and we hopped on an Airbus to Hue. I will mention that their domestic flights come standard with a complimentary bottle of water, but first and foremost, a refreshing tissue (as stated on the individually wrapped wet-wipe). When I first received one on our way to Phu Quoc, I took it and then tried to take cues from the other passengers - do I use it now, do I wipe my hands, do I wipe my face and forearms basically bathe with the thing? There were others looking around too taking cues, so I decided hands and face were acceptable and went to work. Jade, organizer, planner, strategist, saved hers. She said with a smile 'you never know when we'll really need these'. I felt like I did when I was a kid, bummed that I didn't save any of my candy for later like the wiser-older kids when they abstained from finishing off every little bit.

We arrived in Hue without any trouble - a scene similar to Ho Chi Minh City, but smaller, less busy, and most notably 20 degrees cooler. Although still humid, I can deal with the 70's. We were chaffered up the steps, one man welcoming us, another taking our bags, yet another to open the door for us at the top of the steps, and a woman to greet us. The young woman had very good English even cracking a few tongue in cheek jokes. As we walked inside, they escorted us straight to the cute little eating area for a welcome drink (orange pineapple juice), some fruit, a cookie and another baby powder/coconut scented refreshing tissue. The young woman gave us a very detailed run down of everything from laundry service to little maps of the area to where to go for dinner. She walked us up to our room - one of 3 rooms on the 6th floor a small but very modern room overlooking the street scape. She went over every detail and left. Very impressed with the room we had the feeling of, is it bad that we just want to spend the night in our room and not go out in the city'.  After settling in we decided to go out for dinner, and then back to our room where I could blog away at the computer in our room and watch a little TV, and Jade could rest - she had a bit of a headache.

I'm sitting here next to Jade waiting for her to wake up so we can go and explore the citadel.

Also, just a side note, Vietnam has blocked Facebook, so we don't have access to the site at all. Kind of weird huh.

And nescafe smells much worse than it tastes...