Don't Feed The Trolls

We all know the feeling. You're walking down the street, minding your own business when, totally unprovoked, some stranger walks up to you and wants to sell you something. It could be spiritual enlightenment, a Greenpeace membership, some sunglasses or a tour through the city on a rusty bike.

What people usually do, is either turn around and walk away, or hear them out and walk away anyway. One must not encourage this kind of pushy behavior, which often comes hand in hand with a conversation you really don't want to be having anyway and motivate them to keep on doing it to other people. One must not feed the trolls.

Needless to say, yesterday I've fed the troll.

There was this man on one of these rusty bikes who approached me and offered to take me to the most interesting sites the old cultural center had to offer. Me being on a trip and all, doing stuff I'd never do anywhere else, so so I agreed to one hour of torment sitting in front of a guy who would be talking and talking and, in the end, who turned out to know quite a lot about his city.

The driver on the bottom left

So turns out that Hue had a big part to play in the Tet offensive in '68. Lots of people died here and the scars of bombing campaigns remain visible to this day. I went to visit a small exhibition which showed off some of the captured tanks and planes by the North Vietnamese. Went to some Buddhist temples and saw some monks and to see a place where jewelry is being made. It was all quite colorful, varied and occasionally interesting, but I couldn't help the feeling that it's just wrong for me to sit in a thing where a guys bikes you through the city. I was a little too far away from my comfort zone.

This would be a tank.

Looks legit

Truth be told, having been to the countryside, I find it difficult to enjoy the city life here. The xe oms, the guys that drive people around on their motorbikes, are everywhere and they yell and wave at you on every street corner. Now that I'm well into my second week here, my patience wears thin with these guys.

Welcome (back) To The (shitty kind of) Jungle

Anyway, today I go see the citadel and then I'm going to look for a way to get to Hoi An, which is somewhat smaller and supposedly very authentic.