After a not so comfortable delayed 16 hour day train from Hanoi our arrival in Hue was a breath of fresh air. We sped to the hotel in five minutes in a taxi and despite the fact that we were scheduled to arrive at the reasonable time of 8pm the front desk staff at the Cherish Hotel happily checked us in well past 10. We booked our City View Deluxe Double at the Cherish Hotel via Agoda for £21 so to say that I was somewhat surprised and overjoyed when I saw the room would be an understatement. It really did look like the pictures online! I happily collapsed into our super comfy double bed and awoke refreshed and ready to explore the city.
Photograph courtesy of the Cherish Hotel management team
Because we'd arrived so late and were a little dazed from our epic train journey both Nick and I forgot to mention our dietary requirements to the front desk staff upon check in. I always recommend this as it gives a hotel some time to prepare something for you if they're so inclined. After scoping out the options on offer at the Cherish's frankly enormous buffet station I piled up as much mango as I felt polite taking and located the restaurant manager to ask some pressing questions about whether there was fish sauce in the veggie fried rice.
The answer was of course yes but after a discussion about what we could and couldn't eat restaurant manager Michael, we were on first name terms pretty fast, said he was going to pop to the kitchen and make us something. He came back a little while later with a whole plate of veggie fried rice, no egg, no fish sauce, and even insisted on serving it to us at the table.
We were pretty impressed at this point as usually you have to spend a whole lot more before anyone's going to go out of their way to make you a special vegan breakfast.
The next morning Michael was happy to see us again as he'd made us something else special for breakfast! Vermicelli with vegetables with a side plate of sautéed courgette and mushrooms. I might have used the word hero that morning!
He was also excited to chat with us and practice his English and recommended that we visit DongBa Market where we could get an idea of where the locals shop. We went immediately after breakfast and had a great morning wandering around marvelling at the sheer amount of dissimilar things being sold alongside each other. You really can buy anything at DongBa Market, from tools to clothes and from industrial kitchen equipment to jewellery. It's definitely a must visit spot in the city and I wasn't surprised to read that it's the biggest commercial centre in Hue province.
On our last morning when Michael popped up again to tell us that he'd made us some noodle soup with vegetarian broth my mind was kinda blown. This was a delicious and filling start to the day and I was beginning to wish that we were staying here forever!
The view from the Cherish Restaurant isn't too shabby either and whilst we didn't have dinner there I'm sure that with a little advance notice they would be able to prepare an amazing vegan meal for you.
I really can't recommend this the Cherish Hotel highly enough, the staff went above and beyond, the food was wonderful and I loved getting to stay in 4* luxury for a bargain price.
As I mentioned in my last blog post Hue was the tipping point between me enjoying exploring Vietnam and really starting to fall for it. The wide Perfume River and it's cosmopolitan south bank dotted with eateries including the veggie and very vegan friendly Bo De was a joy to amble along and I adored the afternoon I spent exploring the Imperial City.
