Hue II

Yesterday we started out at 7:00 breakfast in the hotel. There are a fair amount of tourists in this area, so they have the traditional Vietnamese breakfast items but also an assortment of foods for everyone. They have an egg station, but they are not familiar with scrambled eggs. Tram had to go with the girls to explain to the chef what it was they were wanting.

This day was going to be a long day of driving. We were traveling five hours to get where we were going. We made two stops on the way. The first stop was a Catholic Cathedral that was over 200 years old. It is said that Mary appeared there during the war when people were taking refuge at the church. The cathedral is little more than a façade as the back part of it was hit by bombs during the war. A little ways away there was a statue of Mary and there was a group praying around it. From the tempo of the prayers it sounded like they were doing the rosary.

The next stop was the bridge that divides North and South Vietnam. There is a new bridge for vehicles but we got out of the van and walked across the old bridge. On the South end there is a beautiful statue of a lady and child and coconut leaves. On the North end there is a large Vietnamese flag on a stone pedestal. Ownership of the bridge is even divided in half. We were told that during the war a gentleman from the South would go over every night and bomb the North's flagpole and that the next day the North would put it back up again.

We got back on the road and made our way to the Phong Nha Cave. I have run out of adjectives to describe the beauty. We traveled by boat to the cave and all the way to the back. We then made our way on foot back to the mouth of the cave. A photographer went with us and took many pictures throughout the cave because it was so dark our cameras wouldn’t work in it. I will have to wait until I get home to scan in some of the photos to share of the cave. We then had a boat ride back to the village.

Of all the driving we’ve done – well actually, we’ve had a driver the whole time – we had not seen any accidents until yesterday. On the long trip to the cave we saw two motorcycles that had run into each other and then a truck loaded with wheelbarrows that had overturned. We also had one instance where we almost had a wreck, but our driver did an excellent job. I was dozing a little and felt him hit the brakes and looked up and there was a girl on a motorbike sideways in the road right in front of us. Our driver was able to get the van stopped and everyone went on their way as if nothing had ever happened. Did I mention that I will never ever, ever drive in Vietnam?