Hue — Blog — The Towering Travelers

As I sat on a bicycle and was towed up a hill in the Hué countryside by a Vietnamese woman on a moped, it occurred to me that even if we had just been scammed out of $12, this experience was probably worth it.

We started the morning with a quiet walk to the Citadel. We really didn’t have plans for the morning at all, except to try to find pretty things and get more of a feel for the city. We spent a lot of time walking on the street, since the sidewalk ends up being used mostly as moped parking. We were starting to feel more comfortable with trusting the drivers to not hit us, though, so it wasn’t too concerning.

School children were always very excited to see us. They loved it when Jason took pictures of them. I said hi to a boy who was around 12 as we walked by, and after he responded hello, asked how he was. His face went completely blank, but his friend excitedly broke in with “good, how are you?” When Jason responded that we were great, there was a lot of whooping and excited chatter.

School children exercising in a park (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After walking a few miles (we quickly decided that the Citadel was too confusing and headed out to the rest of the city for a while), we stopped and had coffee and ginger tea at the coffee shop of another hotel (since we have weak American stomachs, we have to be careful where we stop for cold drinks). After the drinks, we walked a little more and stopped for lunch at an odd place that served both Vietnamese and Italian food, which was actually pretty good. After lunch, we headed back to the hotel to get bikes.

The Perfume River (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We had decided not to do the optional tour to go out into the countryside and visit some tombs and villages, and opted for the cheaper option of taking ourselves out to visit a couple of the tombs by bike. Our hotel rented us the bikes, which were very old, very squeaky, and tiny because no one here is as big of us. We both spent a lot of time pedaling as fast as we could on tiny fixies. For some reason our hotel is in a Bermuda triangle of sorts and we can never find the right way to get in or out of that block, so we were a little flustered. Between being lost and trying not to die in the insane Vietnamese traffic, it took us about 15 minutes to get on the right road out of the city. I said we should turn left at the major intersection and then started second guessing myself so we stopped to look at the phone. While we were doing that a Vietnamese woman on a red moped stopped and asked us where we were going in fairly good English. We said Khai Den’s tomb, and she said we were going the wrong way, but also that we didn’t want to go there because there was no shade and it wasn’t that great, but over by where she lived there was a really pretty tomb and we should go there instead. She introduced herself as Roi and said she’d love the chance to practice her English with foreigners. She said she’d ride slow so we could follow her and we thanked her and followed her out into the countryside.

Roi leading us through the countryside (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On the way out Roi told us that she’s a farmer who grows rice and peanuts, among other things. We biked along the river, which was gorgeous. Lots of rice paddies and water buffalo and ducks and boats on the river. When we were going uphill, she told me to grab onto her arm and stop pedaling so she could tow me. She took us into the highway in order to cross the river on a big bridge, which she said was new, and then we turned off the bridge and started riding down an alley of sorts that had at one time been paved in concrete but was so broken up that it was basically off-roading. We rode between the river and a village that had dogs and chickens in front of all of the tiny houses. Everyone stared at us (white people don’t bike down the tiny secret alley) but most of them smiled back at me when I smiled at them. Eventually, we got to the tomb. Roi pulled her bike over to a parking area, and we locked our bikes together there. Roi told us that we could pay to go in and she would wait outside, and then afterward we could come to her house for a couple of minutes if we had time.

The tomb was Minh Mạng’s tomb, and it was really stunning. Minh Mạng started building the tomb, which consists of three gates and several associated structures, it in 1840. When he died in 1841, his son took up the construction and completed it. There were lots of beautiful walls and gates, and there were symmetrical twin lakes on either side. Everything was in various levels of restoration, with the main gates shining from restoration in the 1980s and 1990s. There were also many moss-covered, crumbling stone walls that had never been restored and were propped up in the meantime. The whole thing was shaded and green and incredibly quiet and peaceful.

One of the gates at Minh Mạng’s tomb (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A red door in a crumbling wall at Minh Mạng’s tomb (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Minh Mạng’s tomb (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We spent about half an hour there, mildly worried that the hotel’s bikes would be stolen, and headed out the gate again. Roi came out to meet us and we got on our bikes, which were not stolen. As we were leaving, a man motioned to our bikes delightedly and asked if we were Polish. Roi led us through a small herd of water buffalo and back along the off-roading alleyway and back across the big new bridge, and then we turned off into another small road and went through two more tiny villages along the water.

Roi towing Nicole up a bridge (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole in Roi’s home (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Roi in her home (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Outside of Roi’s home (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Then Roi took us to her house, which was a tiny structure with a bed and a table, and served us tea, which we maybe should not have drank but did because it was with hot water that we thought had been boiled at some point. We stayed about 10 minutes and talked to her about her life and family. She lives there with her husband and two children, and she has never left the Hué area. She said her two children were both in high school so they wouldn’t have to be farmers like her and her husband, but that high school cost a lot of money. She said she normally works all day in the farm, but that day she has gone to town to talk to the teachers instead, which is how she found us. We talked a little about her village of 500 people and whether she likes her neighbors. She said she doesn’t have a tv, so sometimes she goes over to the neighbor’s houses to use theirs. Then, in a very hesitant and embarrassed way, she asked for money for her childrens’ tuition. We gave her some of what we had, which was about $12 USD. We thought she was asking to follow us to our hotel so we could give her more, but she was just telling us that she would take us back to the city so that she could take the money to the teacher. She was embarrassed that we thought she was going to follow us to get more. So, we rode back to the city with her. She dropped us off where she had found us, along the big road that went into the city.

Heading back along the Perfume River (Photo/Jason Rafal)

In the end, we’re not sure if we were scammed or not, but we don’t think it really matters. $12 is a lot less than we would have paid for any “authentic” group experience, and we got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity out of it. We’re glad she found us.

Jason here. I don’t usually write on this blog. I leave that to Nicole, since I am a much better photographer than a writer, but I thought it might be interesting to give my side of this adventure. When we initially rode off with Roi toward Minh Mạng’s tomb, it was exhilarating. This is what it is to have an adventure in a foreign country. I was already excited to get out of the city. We both were not as enthused about visiting Hue when we arrived, compared to other cities we had already visited. It was depressing to see a city so ravaged by war, and not kept up by the state. So getting out and seeing a bit of the countryside was going to be a wonderful reprieve. Riding off with Roi was an exciting moment. Seeing the beautiful Perfume River to the side as we rode was breathtaking.

One thing to note about this adventure is that it took hours. The bikes were rickety and slow as we rode more than 12 kilometers each way. After the first several kilometers ticked by I began to overthink the situation, as one tends to do with that much quiet. I thought through how glad I was I had not brought my wallet or passport. How perhaps I would beg to keep my memory card, to keep the photos on my camera, if things were to take a turn for the worst. But those thoughts mostly passed after a few more kilometers. The sound of my rickety bike went from being a nuisance to a calming sound in the background. Then I began to really take in the sights and do the most dangerous thing I had done this whole trip: taking photographs with my camera while riding along the winding roads. I couldn’t help myself. I saw Nicole up ahead talking with Roi. Roi helping Nicole up the hills. I needed to document this – to remember this all. Nicole mentioned as we biked that we had nothing to give her, and wondered if we should get her something at Minh Mạng’s tomb. It was a touristy place, there were stalls selling little trinkets, water, and ice cream. I figured she probably didn’t want anything from there. So when we followed her to her modest home, we really had nothing to give other than conversation and a few dollars. When Roi timidly asked if we could perhaps help with some money – I really did not have a problem taking out a few hundred thousand VMD (worth about $12 USD, as Nicole mentioned). It was the least we could do for letting us learn about her life and having her guide us through the countryside where she lived. I have no clue if she did this often, or if she really did need the money for her children’s education. What I do know is that school does cost money, and that we will always have this memory exploring Vietnam.