Hue - Ancient citadel

Hue, ancient citadel, was bombed very heavily during the "american war" (as they refer to it here - not so much in an anti american sense, but more to identify it from the many other wars preceding it). The city was pretty much razed to the ground, so our expectations were not high of finding much historical architecture intact. However we were to be pleasantly surprised by the state of restoration.

But before we could take in such sights we had to make a little detour to our plans - as soon as we had disembarked from our overnight train and checked into our hotel, we were off in a taxi to take Gary to find an English-speaking doctor. The usually fairly trusty Lonely Planet (or "LP") unfortunately let us down here - after wandering around several back streets in search of the elusive Dr. Doung we finally headed off to the hospital to try our luck there. It turned out to be a fascinating opportunity to see how healthcare operates in developing countries. Not so well.

We thought it seemed very promising at first that all the signs had English translations, but as soon as we were in the door, we found that not a soul spoke English. After much wandering around the wards and sitting for a while mistakenly outside the orthopedic department, and being stared at in bemusement by the locals, we tried one last attempt by trying to communicate with a chap in the accounting department (oh those useful accountants!!) using the very limited language section of our guidebook to explain that we needed to see a doctor. Although he didn't speak English, he did understand us, and marched us into the ER to an English-speaking doctor who promptly saw to us right away. It was all a little embarrassing being put ahead of all the critically ill people on the ER ward for what turned out to be a throat infection, but nonetheless, he saw us off with a dizzying array of prescription medicines and a charge of $10 for the hospital's services.

After that, things moved along very smoothly. Gary slowly got better and we found the city to be lovely and a nice break from being hassled by the tourist touts for a couple of days. Hue is also famed as the city where the most beautiful of Vietnamese women reside, and certainly our hotel was run by very charming and elegant ladies.

We spent a full day exploring the ancient citadel which, although badly bombed in the war, they have done significant work restoring the temples and royal buildings. We also spent a day trip visiting the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) from the war - most interesting of all was the tunnels where civilians from a local village holed up for protection in the war - the tunnels were so extensive to even contain a hospital ward where 17 babies were born.