Hue, Vietnam
Day 1
We arrived in Hue at 7.00am after our 10-hour Queen Cafe sleeper bus. Feeling a little out of sorts, tired and hungry, we ordered a sugary black coffee and a bun bo Hue to share, which turned out to be a great little brekkie. This fuelled us to walk 30 minutes to our Airbnb - we stayed here based on free bicycles, but would recommend for so much more! Our hosts fed us delicious dried ginger and milk corn candy (with which I’m now obsessed) and let us check into our room early.
After freshening up a little, we hopped onto our bikes and headed out to explore the city of Hue. Firstly, we cycled around the ‘tourist’ area to the south-east of the Perfume River, where we orientated ourselves and grabbed a yoghurt smoothie to refuel, before cycling onwards over the light bridge to Dong Ba market.
The produce at the market was incredible! So much colour everywhere we looked, and at the end of the day I headed back to buy a papaya, dragon fruit and bananas for only 50,000d. It’s amazing to be somewhere that a healthy lifestyle is so achievable, and really highlights the lack of fresh and easily affordable options at home.
We had read about the various specialities that Hue offers, and read about something called salty coffee. Dismissing this as something a little weird, we still headed to Salt Coffee but I just ordered a ca phe sữa den phia - iced filter coffee with milk - which turned out to be my most impressive coffee perhaps of my life. Served in a little filter on top of a glass with a whole heap of condensed milk at the bottom, I sat and watched with wonder as the coffee filled the glass, I stirred the two together and added in ice, cube by cube.
We meandered back towards our bicycles, which we had left locked up (for free, yay!) back by the market. Cycling home at sunset along the wide, open roads of the city was magical, and we headed towards the pedestrianised zone of Hue since it was a Sunday night. Every weekend, a small area of the city shuts its roads to bikes, cars and scooters and people crowd into the streets to eat delicious food, drink and party together.
We enjoyed some cheap Hu Da beer (12,000 each!) and headed onwards to Cozy Restaurant, our first restaurant dining experience in Vietnam so far! It’s always a struggle on the road to find that balance of cheap - but nutritious - food, more specifically a simple plate of veggies! I would highly recommend Cozy; we loved our array of food - a Vietnamese yellow curry, steamed morning glory and fresh veggie spring rolls. It was so cheap and delicious.
Day 2
We headed to the old Imperial City of Hue after a delicious brekkie of fresh fruit found at the market the day before. Paying 200,000d each to enter, we spent around 3 hours exploring the amazing architecture and history of the city - I would probably recommend getting an audio guide for ease, but google was enough for us to find out the basics.
After 3 hours in the imperial city, we headed to the market for a questionable (we debated for around 5 minutes of whether to participate or not) lunch of crab, meat and egg noodle soup. This turned out to be banh canh, full of delicious thick glutinous noodles which we snipped up with some old scissors.
After filling our tummies with delicious noodles, we headed back to Salt Coffee for its special namesake. Although the name is pretty unappealing, this is an incredible mix of filter coffee, condensed milk and salted fermented milk. It is sweet, thick, creamy and kind of like salted caramel ice cream once you stir it all together and add ice cubes. Ca Phe Muoi is home to this unique recipe, and if you find yourself in Hue for even a few hours, you should definitely order one (or two!)
For dinner, we headed to Lien Hoa, which is a really well-rated vegetarian restaurant (and I would highly recommend!) We ordered all this food and two beers for a total of 100,000d - which is crazy! Afterwards, we headed back to the pedestrianised area for more beer, chats and good times. We arranged a bus to Hoi An for the following day through our hosts, which cost 320,000d for us both.
The next morning, we woke up and enjoyed some delicious fresh fruit from Dong Ba Market. Our hosts kindly arranged a bus to Hoi An for us, and for a quick free taxi transfer to the bus station - one of the perks of them being the middle man, for the same price. After 4 hours and a quick roadside bun bo hue, we arrived in the beautiful town of Hoi An, were greeted by our new hosts at Flame Flowers Homestay with a tray of watermelon and freshly brewed tea. The perfect beginning to our stay!
