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Published: November 21st 2009
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To Hue
Night bus comfort Arrived in Hue and stayed in the first hotel we came to (where the bus dropped us!) partly due to the very friendly guy working there calling us in (and knocking down the price). Got settled in then went for a stroll along the slightly more chilled streets (although with even more rickshaw and motorbike peddlers) across the river to the Old Citadel - a walled part of town enclosing the older bits and pieces. In here we carried on in to the Imperial Enclosure - effectively a walled area for the royals of the 1800's within the walled citadel, and which is made up of lots of walled sub-enclosures - very big on walls in Hue! What was left of the Imperial Enclosure was stunning but much had been destroyed during the French wars and then US bombing. Some areas remained standing, others had been restored, others were just shapes in the ground and weeds where buildings had stood. But even the part destroyed areas were very atmospheric, including areas of the overgrown grounds, with lakes and fantastic old gnarled trees. Were also some beautiful buildings still standing, including Chinese temples.
The next day we got a moped (great
Hue
Citadel walls and Vietnam's largest flag pole way to see stuff, especially when the breaks work!) and headed out in to the countryside south of Hue for the day - first stop the Thien Mu Pagoda (which was quite impressive, and where the monk, Thich Quang Duc, was from who set fire to himself - self-immolation - in protest to the Catholic Vietnamese rule (and massive oppression) in South Vietnam. Next visited a series of royal tombs (Tu Duc, Thieu Tri and Minh Mang) - not sure how as we were completely lost despite Lonely Planets best efforts....but again lots of pointing and smiling got us shown the way-ish! The tombs all follow a very similar layout, with a series of very ornate temples and buildings, each with a specific purpose, a series of lakes with walkways spanning them, and lastly the grand tomb of the royal. For two of these, they were buried in small palaces buried beneath large artificial hills surrounded by a high circular wall. Very relaxing and peaceful places, and amazing landscaping on a huge scale - the best completely fitted in to the surrounding countryside, and the buildings perfectly within the naturalistic planting and landforms. but was also just great fun biking
Hue
Imperial Enclosure through the countryside, through villages, with lots of people laughing at the tourists trying to ride a moped (I think we were pretty good!).
On our lasy day in Hue we splashed out on a personal tour, with an air con car, driver and guide to take us round the Demilitarised Zone - thought it was worth seeing this without a big tour group, and with a good guide. And it was an excellent, if sobering, day. The DMZ was set up after the 1954 Geneva Agreement and split the country in to North and South, either side of the DMZ, as a 'temperary' measure, although elections and reunification never occured with North and South becoming seperate states and soon fighting, the North seeking reunification. The French left as part of the agreement, although the US continued to have massive input to the South to stave off Communism. This moved from financial and arms support, to direct bombing and landing troops in, I think, 1965. And so the DMZ soon bacame one of the most militarised zones in the world.
The tour took as through quite a few of the sights of major bases and battles, museaums etc.,
Hue
Imperial Enclosure gave us a peek of a highway which follows the previous Ho Chi Minh trail, and ended in the Vinh Moc Tunnels - these were not military but were built by villagers to escape bombing raids. They were made up of three levels, the deepest at 23m, through clay, with rooms including maternity ward (17 babies born) and cinema (!) - was pretty claustrophobic but seriosuly impressive bit of excavation, all by hand. But the best bit about the day was our guide who had so much info at his fingertips - he'd been brought up just South of the DMZ near the largest US base at Dong Ha. His parents were farmers and he could clearly remember the war, and described how his village holds an event every year to commemorate when it was carpet bombed - he was not there at that stage as was teaching in the South. He had one brother who fought for the South, and one for the North, a common situation - one died certainly but we didn't want to ask about the other. He also descibed how on the seperation of the country, often the men stayed in the North to fight,
Hue
Imperial moth in the Imperial Enclosure! while the women and children would head South where it was safer, but also to support to underground Communist party. Driving through the towns, villages and countryside it was incredibly difficult to picture how it would have been, and just bizarre to think how many of the incredibly friendly people we've come across would have been involved - what they would have seen and, in some case, done.
The next day, up again and off to Hoi An!
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