Hue Perfume River Cruise Diary

We arrived in Hue at around 9am on a Saturday, after a 15-hour bus ride from Hanoi. We walked to our hostel, put down our backpacks and immediately booked a river cruise tour. We were only staying one night in Hue so we had to make the most out of it. We paid VND700,000 to get a dragon boat.

It was REALLY hot and humid that day and the wind barely blew. The heat index or "feels like" temperature was around 38 to 40 degrees Celsius and we were still tired from our overnight bus journey from Hanoi so you get the picture. Nevertheless, we were not going to waste the day.

We went to four sites: Thien Mu Pagoda, Minh Mang Tomb, Hue Nam Shrine and a garden house before being dropped off to the Hue Imperial Citadel.

This is Thien Mu Pagoda. There's no admission fee required to enter.

I attempted to climb the ladder to the second floor of the building pictured above but I couldn't manage. The boys were able to climb, though.

We went to Minh Mang Tomb afterwards. Admission fee is VND200,000. It's huge and beautiful.

The view from a pavilion where I chilled for a while. It was relaxing.

We went back to the boat and lunch was ready.

Spring rolls, grilled fish, fried chicken and omelette.

Lunch was modest but it was really good. Everyone was pretty famished because it was already past 2pm and some of us didn't even have breakfast that day. However, having to pay VND250,000 EACH, I couldn't help feeling ripped off.

The boat turned around and then we went down this place called Hue Nam Shrine. The site is small and quite grim and we all thought that the VND40,000 admission fee we paid for wasn't worth it because there's practically nothing to see.

We also visited a garden house.

Finally, we were dropped off at the Hue Imperial Citadel

We were told by the hostel staff that the Imperial Citadel closes admission at 5:30pm and we arrived there at 5pm but we were still unable to get in. I was really disheartened because I really wanted to see this place. We've already bought a bus ticket to Hoi An scheduled to depart 9am the next day so it would have been impractical to move our schedule. Thankfully, the Imperial Citadel opens at 7am so I went there with two other co-workers the following morning. I will write about it next!