Hue 1, pt 2

After feeling pretty hopeless in the morning I had to try and put the camera business out of my mind as I was due on a day tour of Hue's sights. This place is the former Imperial Capital and has a Citadel based on the Forbidden City in China. In addition the tombs and mausoleums of former Emperors are scattered around the countryside out of town. The "English Speaking Guide" spent most of his time speaking Vietnamese to the local contingent on the bus, not that it really mattered as I was stuck with a Russian school teacher chatterbox who wouldn't shut up. But the biggest downside to the tour was the cost. The tour itself was cheap enough, but it didn't cover the cost into most of the sights, each costing a whopping 55000, each of which I was afraid to skip in case it was better than the previous one (the guidebook was no help in this regard). By the end of the tour I can say only one of the tombs was worth seeing and if I'd known this in advance I'd have saved myself 110000 dong. The weather was a complete contrast to the previous day, scorching hot and sticky. We had stopped for lunch in a big restaurant with long tables and while waiting for the bus outside a legless local guy begged for money. To some extent this city feels a lot poorer than either Saigon or Hoi An, despite its heritage (which I guess was bomb and weather damaged and not in the greatest of conditions). For the end of our tour we took a local "Dragon boat down the Perfume river" which sounded lovely on the tourist blurb but was actually a chance to sit down on a wrecked old river boat with a dragon carving on the front and slowly drift down a featureless gray river while the boat owners' 10 year old kids tried to sell us drinks. Not the best tour in the world but I'm sure being pissed off about my missing photos didn't help.