little tara

An interjection from Hue, Vietnam, 2005.

I sent this succinct email to my boyfriend from Hue; I didn’t include this incident in my main group emails because, quite frankly, just thinking about it was still making me queasy at the time! Suffice to say, I survived it and I can now, finally, laugh about it. Phew! And so here’s my sorry tale…

All four of us went on a boat trip on the Perfume River today. It was very beautiful. Lunch was included in the cost of the trip, which was the equivalent of about AU$4. We had all just got back onto the boat after visiting a point of interest, and found lunch all served and ready on tables in the boat. So, we all tucked in. Yum yum. Troy made a comment about the veggies ‘smelling like piss’. I had a sniff, and agreed, but we figured they were just pickled veggies, like kim chi or something, which always smell that way. I avoided the veggies but had the rice and tofu. Troy had 3 bowls of rice to follow his veggies and tofu.

A few minutes after lunch we joined a German couple who had been sitting at the front of the boat. They had not eaten the lunch. We asked why. The answer?

“Oh well, you see, we saw the woman.” Doing what? “She made the rice with water straight from the river. And she washed the vegetables in the same water.” Cue us looking into the river, bright greeny brown, and (this was beautiful) spotting a bloated dead rat float past. All of us promptly turned a colour that matched the damn river!!! 

Our tasty river water. Yum yum, tuck in!

I feel alright now, and that was a few hours ago, but really I’m pretty pissed off at the German couple. They could have potentially prevented us from getting a life-threatening disease just by telling us what they saw and giving us the same choice they had! Thank god I got all those jabs before I left. And, I suppose, at least we know that if the water was used to make the rice then it must have been boiled at some point!

Other than that, I still think Hue is a bit of a hole and I’m glad we only stayed here two days. It’s the first place we’ve been that I really haven’t liked; what a pity.

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Such is the peril of the traveller… sometimes you’ve got to take the rough with the smooth! I rescinded my opinion of Hue as a ‘hole’ in later journeys, but I’m still very wary of catching boats where food is included! As always – if a deal sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

Tags: travel, vietnam