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Published: April 25th 2015
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Hoi An to Hue
Left Hoi An and drove north to Da Nang. Da Nang is Vietnam's third biggest city and has the coolest bridge called the Dragon Bridge. See picture. It is becoming a major tourist and holiday destination due to the beach. Along the way we stopped At China Beach which is a really nice beach. They don't get big waves and it is very clean with lots of deck chairs laid out. From the beach you can see a statue called the Lady Buddha. Took a picture but it looks like she is floating in mid air due to the haze that was around that day.
Moving on we continued to travel north over the Hai Van Pass (21km) of winding road. Great views and up the top are the ruins of a military outpost built eons ago which was also used during the Vietnam War. You can see the bullet holes in some of the walls. The structures are all ruins now - mores the pity. A road tunnel was built that cuts through the mountains which only takes 7 minutes to travel so the traffic on the pass is not very busy anymore -
though on the day we travelled it, it was pretty busy with lots of trucks. You also have to contend with the wildlife (cows, pigs, goats) that get onto the road.
Once your are over the mountains you arrive at Lang Co which is a pretty place where fishing seems to be the main thing going on. Lots of oyster farms. We stopped for morning tea and photos. Continuing north to Hue it started to rain - made for an interesting bus ride as their are major roadworks occurring and our bus driver didn't put his wipers on until he had to stop. Don't know how he could see.
Finally arrived in Hue early afternoon and had lunch at this restaurant owned by one of Vietnam's top photographers. Quite an elderly man but great photos. Bought a couple of course. We then checked into the hotel and went straight out to visit the Imperial Citadel. Raining quite hard now so taking photos has become a challenge.
History of the Imperial Citadel.
Like many of Asia's leaders of the past, the emperor relied upon traditional methods of divination, called geomancy, to choose the location for the Citadel.
With a wish to create a sort of mini-Forbidden City like the one in Beijing, tens of thousands of labourers were conscripted to construct his fortress and palace. They dug a ten kilometre moat, along with thick earthen walls, to create the Citadel's perimeter. Copying the French military architect Vauban, these earthen walls were later replaced by two-meter-thick stone walls. Inside the outer perimeter, a smaller moat and smaller brick walls bounded the emperor's Purple Forbidden City. The Purple Forbidden City, besides elaborate residences, also included a network of gates, courtyards, and administrative buildings. The emperor didn't live to see the completion of his architectural masterpiece; dying in 1820, the Citadel was finally completed in 1832 by Gia Long's son, the Emperor Minh Mang.
In 1968, during the height of the Vietnam War, communist forces overtook Hue and occupied the Citadel. As part of the Tet Offensive, the Vietcong sneaked into the Citadel, killing the South Vietnamese guards, and opened the way for many Vietcong to enter. In an odd twist of fate, the centuries-old, imperial Citadel proved itself a worthy military fortress in the hands of the anti-imperialist communists. Americans had a difficult time dislodging the North Vietnamese
from the Citadel, leading to one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War, the Battle of Hue. American bombing during the battle destroyed much of the Citadel, especially flattening the inner Imperial City, of which few of the original structures remain today.
The remaining buildings in the Citadel have been carefully restored, and in 1993 the Citadel and its Imperial City was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Much of the land that used to be the Purple Forbidden City, however, is today just rice fields. There is still major restoration happening and it would be great to see it restored to it's original layout.
After visiting the Citadel we returned to the hotel for showers and briefing for tomorrow and headed out for dinner. Hue nice and quite compared to Ho Chi Minh.
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