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Published: April 16th 2013
best coffee in Hue
Perfume river, Hue, Vietnam29 March
Hue
The heat is oppressive. Arriving in Hue feels like getting concrete booted and being submerged in 40degree Celsius water, with a plastic bag over your head. My hands and feet and eyes are swollen and I feel quite exhausted. Fortunately our hotel, Hong Thien Hotel, has a pool. Unfortunately it cannot provide a breeze. Nevertheless, Hue is already impressive and we have only done a taxi ride from the station along La Loi to our hotel.
Hue is situated on the exotically named Perfume River, on the central coast of Vietnam. It deserves every accolade passed its way. Despite being the setting of one of the worst and longest battles in the American war, it has picked itself up, dusted itself off and gone out to get a facial.
On the north side of the river is the citadel, the walled city built for the Nguyen dynasty with the help of some French engineers. The Nguyen emperors were puppet leaders who toed the French line and so they were well looked after. Right up until the last one who died in exile in Paris in 1997.
The citadel wall is about
and the lights came on
Perfume River, Hue, Vietnam 10km long and miraculously all of it was left standing once the fighting was over. Unfortunately the buildings inside didn't all get off so lightly, but UNESCO has stepped in and international funding has allowed this complex to arise from its glorious ashes. Glorious indeed. With the skill of local traditional craftsmen and women some of the palaces and temples are being resurrected in all their glossy red lacquer and shimmering gilt wonder. The blue porcelain mosaics, the deeply polished dark wood, the yellow and green glazed ceramic roof tiles, pale blue lacquered furniture, carved ironwood columns, just a teaser to get your imagination piqued about the life of this amazing place. The bits that are beyond repair, have been turned into gardens of ruins. The moats are full of lotus flowers. The gates are properly awesome. Alright, I was impressed.
These same rulers were entombed just outside the city towards the pine covered hills, most of them anyway, and their grand mausoleums are a major tourist attraction. We missed them all. We hired bikes and went cycling in their direction, past some pretty pagodas and temples, but then got so caught up in country lanes, byways, alleyways between
garden houses and paths through paddies and along canals, that we just didn't get there. What we did find though was a Vietnamese war cemetery, simple and proletarian, strangely with a pagoda in the centre; and a huge public cemetery, ornate and colourful with dragons and pagodas decorating both Confuscion , Buddhist and Christian graves - a delightful mixture of beliefs and symbolism.
The garden houses, both the well kept traditional ones and the ones that are now run down, falling down, or just a little down at heel, are lovely, as are the gardens after which they are named. Even the farm houses in some of the more remote paddies are quite stylish in design, with art deco or modernist flourishes. This is how we like to see places - by the back ways.
Back in central Hue, the French quarter also has some architectural delights and the riverside walk is pleasant enough if you can manage the "no thank you" "no thank you" "no thank you" routine without losing patience.
Dinner on the waterfront at the nightly market was disappointing though, so the next night we did something we never do; we consulted Tripadvisor. Number
fish shop on the move
In the traffic, Hue, Vietnam 2 on their list was a small place called Nina's. We arrived really early and were the only ones there for much of our time. What a gem. Nina's is a family run establishment, the old people hidden in the kitchen and the young ones who speak English up front. But the food!! It was our first great Vietnamese meal. All the local flavours and dishes cooked to perfection, and at better prices than the market. We love Nina's but we are glad we got there early because by the time we left the place was full of ONLY westerners and if we had come across it this way we would simply have walked away.
We did however find excellent coffee on the riverside, though on the north bank, at a little shack in a park. Saigon coffee, cold, with sweet milk and served by one of the nicest people we have met. Another family run establishment, but a secret one. And as the full moon rose over the Perfume River and the fairy lights came on on the south bank, we were happy to be in Vietnam.
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