Hue Shopping

It's actually a restaurant that doubles as an art gallery and booking agent for packaged tours. It's a good place to start any visit to Hué. The food is good and reasonably priced - and there is something for everyone with Western and local cuisine plus lots of vegetarian options. The owner is very helpful and can speak wonderful English - he is also a very accomplished photographer. His photographs are found on every wall in the Mandarin Café, and he sells them in every size imaginable - from postcards to 5 x 7" to poster sized. He has a great eye, and I highly recommend stopping buy and making a purchase. The prices are great!

What to buy: Photographs, while enjoying a meal or cocktail.

What to pay: I can't specifically remember, except to say that they were very reasonably priced.

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This rambling, covered market has a little bit of eveything. Fruit & veg, fast food, jewellery, conical "poem" hats (hold them up to the light-they reveal some lovely cut-out scenes)
Our favourite however, was the people selling what looked like fresh cranberry-there were moths that landed on them. the stall-owners were happy to let the moths "lick" their fruit - a welcome change from a country that normally has no patience with nature.

What to buy: Snacks, fruit, jewellery

I wanted to buy inexpensive aodai & not of silk so I asked at the hotel if there was a supermarket for these. The woman said yes, Hoa and wrote it down for me. She said just to show it to any motor cycle driver or trishaw rider. It turned not to be so easy. Bec the word 'hoa' means 'flower' in Vietnamese. Finally a woman at a street stall understood me and got a motor cycle to take me to.....Hoa all right. It was a market with flower stalls in front!

Upstairs were stalls selling clothes & materials for aodai. I managed to locate what I wanted with the help of a seller of silk aodai. She took me to another stall with sports clothing and the woman pulled out heaps of aodai when her friend explained what I wanted. I think they don't display aodai in the cold season.

After much bargaining, I got two for 200,000 Dong each minus the pants. Locals buy similar outfits with pants at the same price. But I was satisfied with the lovely outfits although I paid a little more.

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A great place to buy fresh fruits - as well as taking interesting photo - is the Dong Ba Market in Old Hue (basically on the forbidden city side of the river). The market is in the open air - large, lively and colourful... and you can find all you need.

Apparently you can buy the best conical hats of all Vietnam, but the few we saw on sale were cheap tourist souvenirs...

What to buy: Can you believe that we found the best apples ever in Vietnam?

What to pay: a dollar or two

What to buy: (last date visited - July 12, 2006)

a) rice cracker - 8,000 dong
b) butter raisin cake - 2 @ 2,000 dong = 4,000 dong
c) butter milk cream bun - 2,000 dong
d) passion fruit - 2 @ 3,500 dong = 7,000 dong
e) dried fruits - 3,000 dong
f) apple chips - 18,500 dong
g) coca-cola - 5,200 dong
h) honey juice - 5,000 dong
i) water - 4,000 dong

total = 56,700 dong

What to buy: (last date visited - July 10, 2006)

Silk Painting

- they sell it for 2 US $ (around 30,000 dong) for one silk-painting but believe me, you can always bargain at your own price!

I was able to get it for 5,000 dong for one silk-painting

For 10 pcs, I was able to get it for 50,000 dong plus ONE FREE!!!

So I bought 33 pieces for 150,000 dong or 10 US $!!!

There are some really cool posh boutiques located near the junction to Trang Tien Bridge.

Ladies, just get you credit card(s) ready.


These joints located between Duy Tan Hotel and Trang Tien Bridge. And all of them are tastefully decorated and look inviting.

Dong Ba Market has a good variety of goods at reasonable prices. I found, for example, that it was the cheap place to buy Vietnamese wine and fruit.

What to buy: A bottle of Vang Dalat (Vietnamese white wine) cost 35,000 VND