Chùc Mưñg Nἁm Mởi – Happy New Year!

Yesterday began with the roads looking very wet and there was a tiresome spray in the air as I started off around 8.  The spray meant a lot of mud on my visor and having to wipe it off with my hand.  Still, it eventually stopped and the temperature rose, making it quite a warm ride.  Road very flat with an inside lane for motorbikes and fewer trucks on the road, so I got to Hue fairly quickly, arriving in the city around 12.30.  Almost immediately I got completely lost amidst the heavy motorbike traffic.  Still, I eventually found the Camellia Hue Hotel and was given a room on the 8th floor with a good view.  Well equipped too with safety deposit box, its own computer, fruit, bottled water etc.  After my shower I gave in some clothes to be laundered.  Had a quick lunch of rather weird seafood salad and then headed out to the old citadel and the Imperial Enclosure in which I walked around for several hours. 

Some fabulous buildings, though many of them had been destroyed by American bombs.  Away from the fortified gate there were very few visitors so it was like being in a nice peaceful park.  It's quite huge so I managed to get a bit lost. 

Do they have Dr Who here?

In the evening I walked to the small concentration of tourist restaurants and hotels looking for the one that had been established by a Japanese philanthropist in order to support Hue street kids.  Couldn’t find it but opted instead for a packed restaurant called La Carambole and sat amongst a tour group of New Yorkers, mostly middle to older aged and Jewish from what I gathered, a couple on my left who talked incessantly about their food and two delightful women in their 60s from Woodchester, NY, on my right with whom I talked for most of the evening:  Ruth, a retired teacher of children with special needs and Susan a fund-raiser for a Jewish philanthropical organisation.  They were quite reserved but cultured and interesting, and I enjoyed having someone to talk to (though I wonder sometimes whether I am coming across a bit strong in my eagerness to have a conversation with someone).  I have to say I was glad not to be doing what they are doing: one night here, two nights there and then on to the next plane.  I had tuna steak, greens cooked in garlic, and rice.  On the way back to my hotel I heard some people calling out my name.  I assumed they were hailing another James but turned to look anyway and there were the two reclusive German women from the Halong Bay trip whose names, I am ashamed to say, I never knew and still don’t know.  Anyway, we were all thrilled to see one another and it felt like meeting old friends we had known for a lifetime.  What a lot we had to discuss!  Travelling seems to make refugees of us all.