Day 9 – Vietnam

People here burn stuff in the street to bring good luck. This happens on every half and full moon. The smell of incense and burning paper is a nice change from normality. Our hotel is nice, cheap hotels try and sell you tours so we have made peace with that. When we arrived they gave us tea and fruit and a map showing us the local attractions.

Hue wakes up much like Hanoi, roosters start the chant at about 5:30 and then people and motorbikes follow soon after. We head to the hotel restaurant to eat, a couple women and a child attend to us. The child plays super Mario on a phone. I can tell just from the sound.

Dawn and I head out to the citadel. She twists her ankle and gets really light headed. I sit her down and head to get a cold drink. I come back and she is being helped up she passed right out and conked her head on the ground. Three people help her up and one runs to get me from 30 feet away. People are so nice here.

It’s moments like these that make you realize how nice people are all over the world. Vietnam is uncharacteristically nice.

I give dawn some sprite and a water, wipe her off and check her vitals best as I can. I thank the men who helped her and after a quick marine corps examination. We take a taxi home and I get her to the hotel room. I make her tell me what she would do to me and we run through some tests to see if she is ok. It seems like a fluke a one time thing.

We have realized that travel for us isn’t about checking a bunch of things off our list. We travel to be. To exist somewhere else to experience the good the bad. To experience. We’re here for each other and it’s scary when something goes wrong. But that’s just it, language barriers aside if you need help people no matter the make, color, model, religion, or whatever will help. Getting help is not hard asking for it is.

Dawn and I have someone who has our backs all the time no matter what. And that’s awesome we get to see this grand place with each other.

We make it to the citadel finally after a rocky start. It’s a serene peaceful wonderfully place.

We walk through thousands of years of history and wonder at what still survives. The US fought like hell in this place to reclaim Hue after the Tet offensive. But bloodshed over this place has been part of its life for thousands of years.

It’s a beautiful place some restored some still original and some gone. Still amazing in every respect.

We’re thankful for each other and thankful this wasn’t something bigger, Dawn got scraped up, and I got a bit of a scare. But Dawns a trooper and we put down another 6 miles of walking after her spill. Crazy stuff, lucky for us Hue has the best hospital in the country and more English speakers than anywhere. And lucky for us we didn’t have to test test that. What was tested was our bond and that’s as strong as ever.

Read the other entries from our Vietnam trip below
Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 4 1/2 – Day 5 – Day 6 – Day 7 – Day 8 – Day 8 1/2 – Day 9 – Day 10 – Day 11 – Day 12 – Day 13 – Day 14 – Day 15 – Day 16 – Day 17 – Day 18 – Day 19 – Day 20 – Day 21