We arrived in Hue and checked into our hotel, Binh Duong 1. We had been offered a basic double room for $8 but decided to splash out and go for the $12 room that contained a computer with internet access as I was getting very far behind on this blog. The room was on the top floor of the hotel, was very clean, well equipped and had a great view. We left the other six of our group downstairs to decide where to stay, giving them our room number so they could get in touch. About an hour later we had a call on the room phone from three of the guys who had decided to hire bikes for an hour for a quick ride around the citadel. We decided to join them and paid for a half days bike rental though this only came to 15p! Our hotel and pretty much all hotels and restaurants are located on the south side of the river in new or European city and the main city itself is across the river. The entire old city on the north side is enclosed by a 20m thick wall that run around the city in a square with each side of the square being 2.5km long. We cycled across the bridge and through one of the gates into the old city. Inside the old city is 2 further walled areas. The first that you reach is the imperial citadel which would have been used by the mandarians, civil and military noblemen as well as everyone who served the emporer. Inside the imperial citadel is a further enclosure called the forbidden purple city. This area would have been used solely by the emporer, his wives and concubines. In fact the only men allowed inside the forbidden purple city who weren’t related to the emporer were eunuchs.