Scooter Gang Hits Hue...

Hue, Vietnam

June 14, 2007
N 16°28.114
E 107°35.480

We arrived at the tour boats around 8:15AM. The majority of the organized tours left promptly at 8:00 AM. At first we were a little worried we wouldn’t get to cruise the picturesque Perfume River, but Marc was able to negotiate a private tour for the five of us on a smaller, privately owned boat. Like Marc says, there’s always someone willing to help you in this country… all you have to do is ask; actually you don’t even need to ask most of the time.

Our private tour pushed off around 8:30 AM and headed up the river towards the Royal Tombs. Our first stop of the day was the colorful Thien Mu Pagoda which was very controversial during the mid 1960’s. In protest of the persecution of Buddhism by South Vietnam's Ngô Đình Dim administration Thich Quang Duc, a monk from the Pagoda, drove to Saigon, sat down in the middle of a busy intersection, doused himself with gasoline and lit a match, engulfing himself in flames. Today the Pagoda houses a memorial of sorts for the monk— the actual car he traveled to Saigon in resides in the temple.

After we departed from the Pagoda we continued our trip up the river. Our next stop lead us to a little dirt path at the edge of the river where a group of locals waited to take tourists to see the tombs. The kicker here is the only form of transportation they had were motor-scooters! We all looked at each other and figured what the Hell… lets go!

Each of us nervously climbed onto the back of a motorbike. The same kind Elise used to retrieve her bag just a day ago—the same scooters I just admitted to being terrified of riding. I swallowed my fear and jumped on the back and held on as we took off down country dirt roads. We were surrounded by rice patties, coconut trees, water buffalo and even little calves just wandering around, not even noticing the honking scooters as we zipped by. Initially, when I jumped on the bike, I thought I had lost my mind, but as we dashed through one remote village after another along the Vietnam countryside I realized I was seeing something special.

As Elise said, we were like a nerdy motorcycle gang zipping through the back roads of Vietnam in search of the Royal tombs. We arrived at a site, checked it out and hopped back on our bikes tearing off to the next site. Collectively we agreed that riding the scooter was at least half of the fun, knowing we wouldn’t have seen a third of the sites if we were crammed on a boat with an organized tour group.

The tombs were incredible, very intricate, yet classy. They weren’t dressed in garish gold-leaf like you see in several Asian countries; instead they were bejeweled in glass, marble, stone and maybe a few jewels. As we slowly walked through the 102F heat at each of the tombs we talked a little about the great experiences so far in Vietnam.

We have only been here for one week, but we have had several amazing experiences so far. We are really happy to share the experiences as a group, as a family.