Tag Archives: history

Travelinds, Vietnam

Hue, Vietnam

13 August 2014

Hue, Vietnam

Imperial Fortress
The Imperial Fortress is full of dragons, depicting power.

Hue, the epicenter of ancient Vietnam and previous capital city. Home to the Imperial Fortress, Royal residences, pagodas, tombs, the Perfume River and so much history of war and destruction.

Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to go and see the ‘garden houses’ and I’m sure this would have been a great place to see Hue’s historical beauty preserved by patriotic, caring citizens.

Hue was definitely one of the most interesting places that we visited in Vietnam.  The local cuisine is truly unique and delicious too; I would definitely consider the food as one of the main attractions in this city!

Bicycle Culture

Hue was well worth a trip, especially if you like historical and cultural aspects of travelling.

It is small enough to cycle around (we hired bicycles from our hotel for $2 per day) and there are so many little places to explore, including some local entrepreneurs at street stalls, quaint shops and interesting restaurants.

We stayed at The Canary Hotel ($18, big clean rooms, air-con, nice view higher up, lovely breakfast on the 7th floor overlooking the city).

The staff were really helpful here with planning activities and the rest of our trip to Hoi An.

There is a bus that comes right past the Canary hotel for $5 pp to take you to Hoi An (we made a day trip out of it rather for $12 pp and went on a private van through Lang Co, Hai Van pass, Marble Mountain Danang, to Hoi An).

Hue Night Market
The night market was fascinating. These handpainted pictures were one of the things we bought (for about $1)!The night market was fascinating. These handpainted pictures were one of the things we bought (for about $1)!

 

TIP #1: Ask your hotel about the night market (between the bridges) as this was a highlight for us (it was a Friday night, local market not aimed at tourists, great buys and interesting things to see and do).

 

TIP #2: The traffic is still a little crazy in parts but you get in to the swing of things and people seemed generally patient with tourists on bicycles and motorbikes. The Thien Mu Pagoda was 3 km out along the Perfume River road and it turned out to be an awesome cycle from the Imperial City to the Pagoda and back to our hotel (about 10 kilometers total).  Plus, Hue is relatively flat so cycling on creaking bicycles without gears is not too difficult.

 

TIP #3: When we visited the Imperial Fortress, we didn’t realise that we couldn’t cycle around inside the paid area (about 105,000 VND per person to enter the purple “forbidden” city), so be prepared for a lot of walking, in the hot sun! Take water, sunscreen and comfortable walking shoes here to make the most of the experience. The Purple city ticket also provides access to the museum just around the corner from the exit. There are places to park your bicycles close by, which the hotel can indicate on the map (only a small fee for a whole day’s parking).

Check out more information on Vietnamese Food, Vietnamese Trains and Hoi An.

Malaysia, Travelinds

Kota Kinabalu State Museum

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27 January 2014

The Kota Kinabalu State Museum complex is a most interesting place to visit if you want to learn more about the intriguing culture and history of Sabah. We spent an entire day here and still didn’t get to see all that the complex has on offer.

The first stop was the Main Museum building and this kept us busy for a very long time! Natural history, Sabah special ‘Then and Now’ display and the ‘Our culture’ sections were the most interesting and it took a lot of time to work through all that valuable information.  We also watched a video (about an hour) in the natural history section titled ‘Borneo’ (1937) – an old black and white movie travelogue shot by famous explorers Martin and Osa Johnson.

We found some local Malaysian lunch at the small cafe called Zureen’s cafe (located just outside the heritage village, in the parking lot). This included our favourite ‘Char Keow Teoy’(fried flat noodles with chicken or prawns), ‘Mee Goreng’ (fried yellow noodles) and Horlicks/Nestum (milky sweet drink, served hot or with ice cubes).  I think the total lunch came to only MYR 12 for both of us.

After lunch, we finished up at the main building and then headed to the Heritage Village.  Here you can see all the different kinds of houses/huts/structures/transport/machinery/equipment used by the different tribes that can be found in Sabah.  It was a very interesting experience to see the vast differences in lifestyles, building designs and practical day-to-day instruments employed in these different tribes.  There was everything from a Chinese farm house to a Rungus longhouse. The Murut longhouse was my favourite, with its huge porcelain jars, wooden rhinoceros hornbills hanging from the ceiling and a trampoline-like floor that is used for entertaining guests.

There were not enough hours in our day to see everything so unfortunately we had to leave before we had seen the science museum, islamic museum and the ethnobotanical garden.  Read more about the Sabah Museum here.