Our next morning we had a long drive planned to Hue so we decided to grab breakfast at Bikini Bottom again since we probably wouldn’t have a big lunch meal. Plus the fog was so thick that morning we could hardly see the city from our apartment balcony! So it was for the best that we waited a little so we could actually enjoy the view while driving the Hai Van Pass.

Once we were sufficiently full, we headed back to our place to grab our overnight bags and head into Hue. We took the longer route that took us through the Hai Van Pass since Grant had read it was one of the most scenic drives near Da Nang. And it truly was! We stopped a couple of times so Grant could get some drone shots, which was sometimes a little scary as we were standing on the side of the road while big semi trucks and oil tankers passed by.

According to Google maps, the drive should take around 2.5 hours but we figured it would take longer with the possible breaks we would take. It ended up taking us about 4 hours to get to Hue after our “Free the booty” breaks. Grant could tell when it was time to stop for a moment once I started shifting my position behind him. Sitting that long on the back of a bike definitely made it feel like my butt was going numb so I appreciated any break we took.

We stopped at a local stand to grab a cold water and Coca Cola. We knew we were out in the country as the couple spoke zero English. One regret we had on that drive was not trying the sugar cane drink they make here in Vietnam. They send stalks of sugar cane multiple times through a press machine and collect the juice. It’s probably very sugary but guess we won’t know for sure! She had pointed to the machine when we arrived and we didn’t know what she was referring to but we watched her use it make drinks for local school kids as we were leaving.

Once we got into Hue, we dropped off our stuff in the Airbnb and headed to the Hue Citadel and temple area. Of course we found another historical site under restoration work so we couldn’t go into the main palace. But we enjoyed our time walking through the grounds! On our way out of the complex we got stopped by a group of locals that called Grant un-human because of all the hair on his arms and also commented on his red beard. We had a good laugh with them, especially when one of them wanted to touch his arms.

Grant had asked our Airbnb host for recommendations in Hue and he told us we should visit a local restaurant to try the pancakes there. Supposedly Hue has a very specific central Vietnamese cuisine that he said was best to try here. We grabbed the set menu to share (though we should’ve ordered one each) which included spring rolls, rice pancake, some pork rice paper roll and some oyster looking things that were basically just egg and pork on top. It was surprisingly really good but like I said we could have ordered one for each of us. We headed back to the Airbnb to relax and cool off in the AC.

We ended the night visiting the Hue Night walking street. I thought it was going to be another night market area but turned out to be a street full of bars for the Westerners to enjoy. We grabbed a drink at Mew bar and then went walking around to find dessert. We found a bar or club or something called SpaceX. We still aren’t exactly sure what it was but all the workers were sitting outside on their phones but were a bit rude so we didn’t go in to see what it was. We were able to find a gelato place and I tried their rose shaped gelato. The girls working there seemed annoyed they actually had customers and would have rather enjoyed sitting in the booth chatting and on their phones.

We headed back to the room to watch some Ted Lasso and plan out our next morning.