August 12, 2007

Hue (VIETNAM)

Hitting My Brick Wall

I arrived in the city of Hue at 9am this morning, and my body was a wreck after a nearly sleepless night on the bus. We made a series of 30 minute stops over the course of the 13 hour ride, but each one was at a scummy open-aired building offering unsanitary toilets and scores of poor children trying to sell things. When it is 2:00 in the morning, this is not the kind of thing anyone wants to be dealing with - but it was still better than sitting on the miserable bus.

Anyway, back to the city of Hue, which was formerly the capital of Vietnam and is located roughly in the middle of Vietnam. Hue is still the intellectual heart of Vietnam with the most universities, a "higher" way of speaking, some of the country's best food, and the former walled palace complex called the Citadel. Everything was quite impressive to see firsthand, but my heart was just not in it today. I went so far as to pay $6USD (exorbitant price, in my mind) for my own room with air-conditioning (Jin skipped Hue and continued on down the coast) in an attempt to inject some life back into me, but it was hopeless.

Really the only positive to come out of the day was watching Arsenal play their first game of the Premiership season. They went down 1-0 after only 47 seconds, but in the last 10 minutes of the game Arsenal came up with an amazing come-from-behind victory. It was a good start to the season (showing "character" and all that) that was made even better when Manchester United later went on to draw a game they should have won.

Sadly, and despite my best efforts, I did not fall asleep until 4am in the morning. I do not know if it is exhaustion or insomnia that is plaguing me, but after two straight nights with only a few hours of sleep I am desperate desperate for some real rest. But it was not to be...