Vietnam has been on my travel to-do list for a number of years. I hadn't been to Southeast Asia and decided that Vietnam with its rich culture and history, bustling cities and beautiful scenery, and, of course, delicious food was the best place to start. I had 15 full days in the country; this meant I could take advantage of the current visa waiver for UK visitors to Vietnam for stays of up to 15 days.

I couldn't drag myself out of bed as early I would have liked this morning, but after a quick breakfast at my hotel, I headed straight out to Hué's UNESCO-listed Imperial City. The site is huge — the steep walls run in a 2 x 2 km square, surrounded by a moat and just north of the Perfume River.  This imperial enclosure is nested within a bigger citadel and do note that the ticket desk is just before the moat by the main gate. It only takes 25 minutes or so to walk there from the hotel zone, but there are plenty of people who would love to give you a boat, bike, cyclo or taxi ride if you think it's too far.

On Tuesday morning, I took a flight from Saigon to Hué (pronounced hweh), the former imperial capital, located about 600 miles north of Saigon and 400 miles south of Hanoi. I arrived at the airport two hours ahead of my flight as when I tried to check in online, the Vietnam Airlines website told me that the flight was overbooked. Luckily, I got my seat, and when I reached the gate I found a group of about 100 excitable Vietnamese tweens (one of whom was documenting everything on his video camera); I assume that their group was the reason for the check-in issues.