Motorbike tour of countryside around Huế, Vietnam

A motorbike cavalcade turned up at our hotel to take us on a tour of the countryside around Huế stopping off at various places of interest. First stop was a dragon boat trip on the Perfume River followed by a visit to the Thien Mu Pagoda (or its alternative name of the Celestial Lady Pagoda or Fairy Woman Pagoda!) where the monk Thich Quang Duc came from, the one who drove his car to Saigon in 1963 and burnt himself to death as a protest at President Ngo Dinh Diem's repressive regime. The remains of his car and the famous photo taken of him in his orange robes, engulfed in flames, are on display at the pagoda as a memorial to his sacrifice. We set off again on the motorbikes, weaving along some really narrow alley ways between people's houses and shops. Suddenly we would get to the end of the village track we were on and emerge onto a main road, straight into the flow of traffic crossing to get to the next track - white knuckle ride eeeeeekkkkk! We eventually made it out into the countryside, passing paddy fields and travelling along small concrete tracks through villages and alongside little rivers. We stopped at a village fair/market where we met the lovely 'Black Teeth Mama' and found out about the old ways of farming from her. She showed us how she had made her teeth black over the years. The story goes that before toothpaste they used to get yellowed teeth, despite their attempts to clean them with salt and the like, and so they preferred to make them black as they thought it made them stronger. While we were there a film crew filmed both Black Teeth Mama and our group and interviewed some of us as part of the Tourism Festival Week going on in Huế. Later some of the group tried their hand at this funny game trying to break hanging pots whilst blindfolded with varying success much to the amusement of the crowd. Next stop was vegetarian lunch cooked by the nuns of a Buddhist nunnery. The head nun was the fattest Vietnamese person we had seen! The local Buddhist worshipers donate money to support the monestary and obviously the living is good, for the head nun at least! After lunch she took us to their temple to show us how they pray to the female Buddha. After our visit to the nunnery we headed off again on the motorbikes, stopping at an incense stick and conical hat making place. A girl showed us how to make incense sticks, rolling the kind of clay like putty (made of sandalwood and some kind of chemicals mixed together). The conical hats were made on a kind of frame in layers with a paper pattern between them that you could see when you held the finished hat up to the light. Our motorbike guys then zoomed along what would be lovely, quiet footpaths through the woods in the UK, but it seemed to the Vietnamese hiking is biking! They were even honking their horns there! We ended up at the top of a hill opening out onto a wonderful view looking out over a bend in the Perfume River and overlooking famous Hamburger Hill. Last stop of our motorbike tour was to the Elephant and Tiger arena where the Emperor used to have his prize elephant trample the poor tiger to death. The elephant always won as they put the tiger at a severe disadvantage removing both its claws and teeth before the fight! We also had a go at catching the noisy cicadas with a long stick. Then it was back on the bikes and a scary ride through the busy streets of Huế and back to our hotel. What a great day out arranged by our fab tour leader Phat-boy-slim as part of our wonderful Intrepid tour of Vietnam (April 2012).