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Published: June 22nd 2009
We decided to fly from Hanoi to Hue, given the numerous hours already spent on trains.
Nothing special to say about Vietnam Airlines, except that they fly on time, in new Airbuses and that service on board is limited to a bottle of water. And yes, the pilots have either a Russian or British accent...
As our first day in Hue was only half a day, we decided to hire a 'cyclo' and have a tour of this city once the capital of Imperial Vietnam under th Nguyen Dynasty which ruled Vietnam between 1802 and 1945.
Hue has an Imperial City inspired by the Forbidden City in Beijing. It was commenced by Emperor Gia Long the founder of the Nguyen Dynasty.
A lot has been destroyed either by time of by the recent Vietnam war.
The main palace was miraculously preserved and has been restored. It is forbidden to take pictures within the restored palace, I managed however to 'steal' one, but the result isn't that great, sorry.
With funds from UNESCO other parts are being restored as well. Visiting the Imperial City gives a good idea of the past splendor of those Emperors. Some of them did great
things for their country, most were ferocious dictators or puppets at the hands of the French colonial power or even later the Japanese.
The city itself is nice, a bit quieter than Hanoi and as we saw later much quieter than Saigon.
Our 'cyclo' guides brought us to various other places like the local market where we bought lychee's and Mangosteen (The fruit is a bit smaller than a tennis ball and has a dark violet rough skin. When you peel off the upper part of the fruit with a small sharp knife, you can see the transparent white pulp inside arranged in equal segments). You can see a picture of them, they are delicious.
We also visited a house where Ho Chi Ming lived a few years when he was a boy. His father was a teacher and the house, although modest to Western standards, is far from a poor man's house. We could kind of sense how the young Ho became an educated and knowledgeable adult.
We also went to see a place where people live on the river in a kind of 'boat-houses'.
The next day we decided to go and see one the
first tombs built. This tomb was built for Gia-Long, a ferocious emperor famous for saying that he preferred his subject poor. His tomb is situated far away from Hue and is consequently the least visited. As it looked of an adventure to get there, this was enough for us to decide to visit this one. We rented a motorbike and went for a 34 Km adventure in the Vietnam country-side. It was a very nice experience, during a long time we were following the Perfume River, which was gorgeous. Close to our destination we had to cross that river. There is no bridge, so according to our guide-book, a few meters after the Ben-Do 1-Km milestone, we would find a very steep pad leading to the river bank. There we found a tiny sampan, built God knows when with a local women maneuvering it. A piece of wood is hastily put in place so that it links the shore with the boat. While the whole thing is in a temporary stable equilibrium, you hurry your motorbike on the plank and it stays there during the crossing. Absolutely fabulous. Oh, I forget, you have to negotiate the price for the crossing.
We loved it all, the river was so beautiful...
The miracle is that not only did we safely cross the river, but that we ended up finding the thumb a few Km further.
We were of course the only tourists, instead of the busy and overcrowded tombs close to Hue, we had the whole site for us, and what a site! Gorgeous nature and extremely peaceful.
The site is comprised of several constructions, one of them being a pagoda. On approaching the pagoda we saw a man who was sleeping and half naked (it was extremely hot) hurrying to put some more clothes on and in no time, we suddenly had a guard in uniform welcoming us. He made us understand that he had the key of the tomb and that he was willing to use it if we left him a few banknotes! So we bribed our way 'inside' the thumb of this emperor. We found two constructions, one for Gia-Long and one for his wife ( typically, the empresses committed suicide when their husband died).
I could not refrain from thinking that this dictator got what he wanted after all, an extraordinary beautiful and peaceful spot for
his last rest. His successors are continuously disturbed by noisy tourists while he can rest in peace disturbed only by a few Indiana Jones' in the making.
On the way back we had lunch in a local 'restaurant'. We were the only customers and had to wait as the food was prepared on the spot.
Of course we had to pass the river again, with that extra challenge that this time, when arriving at the other side, to climb that very steep pad with the motorbike. We decided that Robson would wait by the boat while I tried to climb that steep pad that was, luckily covered with concrete.
It was only mid-afternoon when we were back in Hue, so we decided to go and visit the famous Tien Mu Pagoda while we had the motorbike. This pagoda built in 1844 is situated along the Perfume River and has a seven storey tower containing an altar to a different Buddha at each storey. Around the tower there are 4 smaller buildings, one of them containing a marble turtle carved in 1715.
The temple itself is guarded by sculpted and colourful giants. As it is an active temple, we
saw some people worshiping their Buddha. In the entry of the temple there is brass laughing Buddha.
After the visit we opted for a boat trip in the river. We negotiated a price for ½ an hour and then came the proposal from the boat owners: they could embark our motorbike on the boat and bring us back close to Hue, that way we didn't have to do it all again by bike.
As driving in this traffic among all this motorbikes is everything but funny, we accepted.
We quickly realised that as it was the end of the day in fact we paid to bring them back to their permanent 'harbour'. But who cares, we enjoyed the trip it was very nice.
The next day we left Hue to Hoi An via a train to Danang. But that is another story.
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