Filed under: Asia
With just over 24 hours in this central coast town, I took a quick afternoon tour of the city. Usually, I just walk or take a moto to the sites I want to see. Hue is a World Heritage Site, where the main attractions are the crumbling Citadel, tomes of emperors past and of course many pagodas! The afternoon finishes with a dragon cruise up the Perfume River, where the floating tin can of a boat breaks down and we have to swap boats mid river! The second boat has a small mechanical problem, but it is fixed quickly – imagine all of this on a short 4km stretch of river! The next day I take in some of the city sites on foot, while waiting to take the 4.30pm overnight train to Hanoi. One of the young guys who works on commission for the hotel (trying to encourage tourists to stay at the hotel when they arrive by bus or train). It’s a competitive world, he walks with me while he waits for the next bus. He’s paid 1 dollar for each person he takes to the hotel, some days he may get one or two, other days, none. He has aspirations to improve his English and become a tour guide and eventually own his own hotel. He’s only 22, but big on ambition. We have coffee sitting on the street with some of the other guys who do the same work. Girls, for a reason I don’t know the answer to, don’t do this work. Unfortunately, there is no equality rights here, so women do hard manual labour like building and road construction, because they are cheaper!
My young Vietnamese friend departs to go to the next arriving bus. He promises to take me to the station, which he duly does. He has ambitions to travel outside of Vietnam, however, this is highly unlikely for him. While the dong – the Vietnamese currency – remains valueless in the face of the dollar and euro, it is only the rich and privileged of society that have such good fortune. The children of wealthy parents are fortunate to be educated abroad, with Australia very popular due to its close proximity to Vietnam. Again, Vietnam suffers the same fate as their Cambodian neighbours in that the state teachers are poorly paid and have no incentive to provide any standard of education. It’s a shame.
The 12 hour train journey rolls in the new year. The start of 2010 rocking away to the gentle noise of the train. I’m the only foreigner on my coach, which is nice. Welcoming in the new year surrounded by lots of people, but nobody really. Thats traveling.
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