Not really, but read on.
Hue, pronounced “hway,” is Vietnam’s Imperial City. It was the capital of Vietnam until 1945 when the Ballard Moving and Storage trucks came and loaded ‘er up and took the ol’ capital on down the road to Hanoi. Beard and I came into Hue with no real plan other than to make sure we tried some Bun Bo Hue (beef noodle soup dish native to Hue). I took the advice of some fellow travelers and didn’t book a room ahead of time. The idea here was that a walk-up rate can oftentimes beat an advertised rate. This had been an effective strategy for the others and one that as of yet, we had not employed. Why not give it a go? I’ll tell you why not – because it doesn’t work, you might almost p*ss your pants and wind up with a stalker named Luna chasing after you. That’s. Why.
Arriving late at night after a long shuttle from Hoi An, we tried the walk-up approach at a highly rated place I’d found online. Wouldn’t you know it – NO VACANCY. F. IN. A. You gotta be kidding me! Ok, this strategy officially sucks. Now what? I gotta go number 1 something fierce after that long ride from Hoi An. Fierce! Fortunately, there was a tourist info center across the street. Maybe they could help me find a place to stay and who knows? maybe some fun things to do. More importantly, maybe they have a restroom! Luckily, they did -albeit one I was not supposed to use but whatever. Details.
We met this girl working there named Luna. She was named after her favorite… planet – she said. Hmmmmmm… I didn’t have the heart to tell her. Anyway, I started rapping with this gal about food because I’d heard that the food in Hue was really good and, well, I’m generally hungry. I told her I wanted to try Bun Bo Hue. She said, “let’s go.” And like that, she closed the office threw us on the back of her motorbike and we were off to eat the best damn Bun Bo Hue in Hue!
Sadly, the street food vendor that has the best Bun Bo Hue in Hue had already closed her… sidewalk for the night. We had to settle for the second best. Here it is!
We’ve got some beef shank, ox tail and congealed pig’s blood – that’s right – in there fo sho along with vermicelli and and some onions and herbs. It was good. Luna was fairly normal at this point except that she didn’t drink anything with dinner – no water, no beer, nothing. Maybe this should have tipped me off but at the time, I didn’t think much of it.
I made plans to go on a cave tour way out in the cut the following day but Luna invited me to have dinner with her again so that she could introduce me to a variety of popular dishes from Hue. Sounded like a good deal to me so I agreed. Whoops. More on that later.
I was picked up early the next morning for the Phong Nha Cave tour. This was a terrible idea. I was relegated to the shotgun seat and buckled in for a 5-hour drive each way. The discomfort of the seat was one thing. Like, I don’t know who normally sits in this seat – maybe people with super short legs like 5-year-olds or midgets or something but it was either a really low seat or high floor. My knees were into my chest. You’d think this was bad enough but was made matters that much more unbearable was the driver’s uncontrollable horn usage. Yes, I get it. It’s a courtesy and a warning for people that you’re passing to give a shot on the horn. That’s fine. However, we were passing people every 5, 10, 30 seconds. Think about that. Even if it’s every 30 seconds (generous), for 5 hours each direction that amounts to 1,200 honks of the horn. AND, this wasn’t just any horn. No no. This was the WORST HORN EVER. Each blast began with a powerful blow to the eardrums and then slowly faded to nothing. The honks lasted 3 seconds apiece. That amounts to 60 full minutes of honks during a ten-hour roundtrip. FML. Enough about horns. Here’s some cave porn.
thebeardedhammer 
