On a Honda Wave 125 from Thailand to Hue, Vietnam

Central Vietnam, set in the middle of the S-shaped country, central Vietnam is where much of Vietnam's formative past has been played out. In Thua Thien-Hue Province, the ancient imperial capital of Hue was once the heart of the Nguyen Dynasty and the old capital city. In Quang Tri Province, the Ben Hai River marks the 17th parallel, which was used as the demarcation line between North and South Vietnam in 1954. The Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and the Vinh Moc tunnels were the scene of heavy fighting during the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, Quang Nam Province is the location of the sixteenth-century silk route trading port of Hoi An and My Son Sanctuary, the sacred remains of the ancient Cham civilization.

In the past, it took a great deal of time to travel from Thailand to central Vietnam since there was no direct road connection between them, and the roads which were there didn't all qualified as roads you could do with a road going motorcycle. Today, however, traveling to central Vietnam from Thailand has become much easier, there's highway number 9, stretching from Mukdahan Province in Northeast Thailand, through Savannakhet in central Laos, to the central province of Thua Thien-Hue, and ending at Tien Sa Port in Da Nang City, but we will did not travel that far, our destination is the city of Hue.

Our choice of transport where two Honda Wave 125, which are basically the work horse of the Thai economic, it seems that everything is transported on this little motorcycles. The Honda Wave is powered by a four-stoke, SOHC 2 valve, air-cooled 124.9cc engine. With a 4-speed gearbox and semi-automatic transmission (no clutch needed). We expected that the 3.7 liter fuel tank of the Honda Wave underbone motorcycle could be a problem, and therefore we had included a jerry-can with spare fuel to our luggage. But we quickly found that we didn't needed it.

In total we drove for about 20 hours and did one night at a small town near the Laos/Vietnam border. A few hours later than planned we arrived at the old imperial capital of Hue, this ancient feudal capital boasts an array of pagodas, temples, citadels, royal tombs, and grand architectural structures which are harmonized with the romantic natural landscape. Most of Hue's important attractions are situated on the north side of the Perfume River. The prime attraction is the royal city highlighting the Citadel and the Forbidden Purple City.

From Hue, if you're interested in the Vietnam War, you can take highway number 1 out of town and follow it until you see the signs, near the crossway's between North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand, the DMZ was created in 1954 as a result of the Geneva Conference ending the war between the Viet Minh and the French. The DMZ extends 5km on either side of the Ben Hai River, and runs approximately 100km from the South China Sea to the Laos border. Contrary to its name, since the Vietnam War began in 1956, this area was the scene of the heaviest fighting in all of Vietnam. Thus, the main attractions in the area, including the infamous Vinh Moc tunnels, are nothing but the legacy of the war's extreme violence.