As the show at the main square in front of the Imperial Citadel in Hue ended. The throngs of people gathered there started to go home. Most of these people are locals and brought their own transportation – motorcyles. Pretty much everyone here has their own motorcycles, everyone except us!
Fortunately, there were a lot of drivers near the entrance of the Citadel waiting for passengers. We wanted to go back to the hotel and told them so. But it seems like they don’t understand English at all. But even if they didn’t seem to know where Ngoc Mai Hotel was, after agreeing to our price, they agreed to take us.
The transportation is called a cyclo. It is basically a tuk-tuk with the carriage in front of the driver rather than behind the driver. It was a rather interesting way designing it. I didn’t notice any locals riding cyclos. Probably because almost everybody has their own motorcycles so they didn’t need them. Oh yeah, did I mention that they cyclo we hired was human powered? Yes, it has a bicycle behind the carriage.
After the drivers took us in their cyclos, we were on our way. On the roads of Hue right after the festivities, it was like a sea of motorcycles on the road. Motorcycles would be jostling for every square inch of the road just to get ahead of the next guy. Sometimes some of the motorcycles were a little too close to each other for comfort. And here we were, tourists on their human-powered cyclo’s trying to find their way back to the hotel. It was amazing that they magically do not run into each other considering the chaos that is in the street right now. Now, I’m beginning to understand why they designed the cyclos with the passenger side first. This is to protect the driver in case of an accident!
Our drivers were talking to each other in Vietnamese and looking at the hotel’s business card we gave them for directions, but it seemed that they have no idea where the hotel was! Remember that the hotel was brand new and was not in the center of Hue, so it was little wonder that they do not know of the place. All I could hear from our drivers was “Ngoc Mai”, “Ngoc Mai”, being repeated continuously. It was so amusing that they sounded like parrots repeating what the other driver was saying.
When we were clear of the city center, it became quite clear that we were lost. The relentless “Ngoc Mai” of our drivers were becoming more irritating with each passing minute and we were getting worried on how to get back to the hotel. All of a sudden someone on a motorcycle ran beside our cyclo. He smiled at us, and I was wondering who it was. It was our guide, Le Tien! Talk about coincidence! I could not imagine that we would be able to find us amidst the chaos on the street. It was a huge relief to see him!
Now with someone to tell our drivers where to find our hotel, they started driving with more purpose now. Le Tien left us and went on ahead to meet us at the hotel. Maybe we should have just asked him to lead our drivers to the hotel. It seems like we were really off course and we starting to pass by communities with rice fields. At one point it was really dark along the road, I shouted to my friend that we were probably about to get mugged and I held fast to my tripod to whack any attempt. To our relief, we were not mugged but rather we were actually right on track.
Our drivers kept saying with the little English they know, “Very far, very far”. This is not our fault, as they didn’t know where the place is and traveled quite haphazardly. However, we pitied them since they did work very hard for this and my friend and I decided that we will double the agreed amount when we get to the hotel. Lo and behold, we soon arrived at Ngoc Mai Hotel, to the relief of us and our drivers. As we were about to express our appreciation for their hard work, the driver said the fare is now double. To our consternation, we explained to them that they agreed to the amount and it was not our fault they got lost. I wasn’t really sure if they got what we mean, but we gave them the double fare we planned on giving them anyway.
Now we are starving. Fortunately, our guides Le Tien and Cuong are already there. We went up the hotel and freshened up and came back down to get our guides to bring us to some authentic Vietnamese food place. Of course we did not come unprepared as we have already done some research on what nice places to eat in Hue were. One of these recommended places as Banh Khoai Hanh. We asked Le Tien if he knew the place and it seems it is quite well known.
It is in a small street just off a main street of Hue. Actually the street was quite dark but the place itself was lit. It is a simple store with seats for guests. In fact, you can actually see them prepare food ride across the room. It seems the place is more for foreigners than locals as they have prepared English menus for tourists. Apparently they are aware of their popularity and are prepared to take advantage of it.
We ordered their specialty banh khoai, which is basically a crispy pancake made from rice flour and fried with egg. Inside is a delicious mix of pork, shrimp, vegetables and bean sprouts. The nice fish sauce adds much more flavor to the already delicious combination. The crispy pancake has a nice text giving a nice experience eating it.
Another thing we tried at Banh Khoai Hanh was their nem lui, which is minced pork on a stick of lemon grass. It is as good as it looks, very tasty. The stick is pulled out and the meat is put inside provided rice paper along with some fresh vegetables and fish sauce, not unlike a spring roll. These two are probably what one must eat when in Hue. Meanwhile, our guides just sat with us and talked.
After that very tasty meal when we were billed with a price which was more than what we expected. Come to think of it we didn’t check the price before we ordered. Since a place that looked like this shouldn’t be too expensive. It seems that they bill foreigners much more than locals. And our guides seemed to be aware of this, it was just disappointing that they did not tell us sooner. Well, to be fair, they didn’t charge us an arm and a leg but something more what we imagined. We’ll just charge this to experience.
I’m sure there are a lot more places to eat dinner in Hue. Eating at Banh Khoai Hanh was nice, but the surprising bill left us with a bad aftertaste. Besides, our hosts didn’t seem terribly friendly either. Caveat emptor.
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