Bad mums become The Spicey girls and crash a wedding -Hue ?? Vietnam

As part of our Wide eyed Tour, we get to meet local guides when we travel around this beautiful country.

Our guides and experts on the ground have been amazing. They organise for a driver to escort us to our hotel on arrival at the airport and then provide a local guide to help us see the local area and or take us on small day tours.

A quick 55 minute flight from Ha noi down to our next town- Hue pronounced Hway.

Hue was the national capital of Vietnam until around 1945 so it’s a busy and beautiful town with lots of shrines and palaces on the beautiful Perfume River with stone walls that line the water canals and home to the beautiful imperial Tu Duc Tomb and summer Palace with its own Royal theatre.

The river is so so clean, because they are close to the mountains of Laos and there are no factories around here polluting the river. In fact the boats get fined if they don’t pick up their rubbish. This river is wide with little dragon boats putting up and down and has locals of all ages cooling off in the river along the waters edge with tree lined parks and BBQ areas.

Our first night we roam around the streets and find that where we are staying is quite the tourist area and the roads are pedestrian only from 5.00pm until 11.00pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. We also find that 4 blondes of western appearance and 1 tall brunette and everyone wants to be our friend as they shove their crying babies at us to get a photo! Poor babies…….

We have had a full day today, so it’s lovely to find this green oasis The Geko Cafe/Pub to chill in with great music, a cool drink and awesome company…..\

Our local guide Tam who likes to think he is Tom Cruise picks up our gang of ‘5 girls on tour’ for our day on the motorbikes. The 5 guys immediately want to know who is single ! Sorry fellas settle down we are all taken !

Helmets on….. mmm and although its illegal to not wear a helmet I am not sure we will be saved if anything goes wrong with the ones we are wearing, and zoom we are off. Along the river and over the bridge and off the beaten track. The first market we go to is for anyone including us tourists. We don’t buy anything, just sit back and hope we make it through the crowds…. it’s like being at the royal easter show bag pavilion!

We are doing a more of a back roads motorbike day, through rice paddies, down lane ways that we wonder how we fit. I love being on the back of a bike, eating dust, smelling the real Vietnam (some not so good), the wind in our hair and smiles on our faces.

From here we visit local temples and ride along the river where they sit , spit, wee and then wash their clothes! It’s incredible going along these canals seeing the real Vietnam ??

We have lunch at a Buddhist nunnery and enjoy the most amazing Vegan meal! Who knew veggies could be that amazing! Back on the bikes for the afternoon tour of a Pagoda Temple dating back to 1601 and the Tu Duc Tomb and a walk through the old royal house where the king had over 100 concubines…….. mmmm he was an interesting character !

Our tour is amazing lots of laughs, numb bums, so Tom the guide make sure we have lots of bum breaks! At one stop we wave as a wedding goes by…… next thing you know, yep we crashed the wedding photos and were invited to the wedding ! Seriously this trip is like one long Netflix session of movies! The Spicey girls, Bad Mums, 50 First Dates ( this is what we say to Keryn) as she has to keep repeating the itinerary as we are all on holiday mode and keep for getting and now we are then wedding Crashers!

So funny everyone wanting their photo with us mum, dad the creepy uncle that seems to be at every wedding, the professional photographer was snapping away. Just too funny

It’s stinking hot 34 degrees feels like 43 and as I realise how sunburnt my neck is…….. Everyone is a little shattered so we wind our tour up head back to the hotel for 2 hours to chill in the pool before we head back out on our Dragon boat trip up river where you will be shocked to know I even managed some shopping on the boat, before we arrive at our next Masterchef performance!

Bloody spring rolls again! Who knew they were different in every city……. same ingredients just a different style, its all such beautiful food though. Pancakes with prawns and pork and quail eggs, stunning spinach and garlic, grilled eggplant in a oyster sauce …… cocktails for some G & T’s for others.

Taxi!

Here are some pics from the Pagoda and the army base. An amazing jam packed 36 hours in Hue- we are off the the Heritage old town of Hoi Ann, so till next time

Mrs Wong x