Mad dogs and Englishmen

They say only mad dogs and Englishmen are crazy enough to be outside in the heat of the day… I’d add to that: tourists. We arrived in Hue after a bumpy overnight train ride from Hanoi and our hotel had arranged for someone to pick us up. You’d think (as I did) that with 2 people and their luggage, that they’d organise a taxi… thus somewhat surprised when we were met by 2 cheerful young men with mopeds. So each guy balancing our bags and ourselves on each scooter, they drove us to the hotel and to be fair I felt totally safe as traffic was quiet and everyone was driving slowly anyway. You may think this is an impressive feat, but the moped also fashions as the ‘family-car’, witnessing 4 people fit on one vehicle (I’ve heard other tourists witnessing 6!)   

Wanting to get as much done in the short time we had in Hue, we went straight out to the Citadel aka the Vietnamese equivalent of the Forbidden City, the residency for the nation’s royalty (the monarch ended in 1945). Unlike its Chinese counterpart, bad weather and a century of wars meant that only 25% of the buildings in the Citadel remain. Though it's unfortunate that it cannot be seen in its prime (but renovation is undergoing) it still was uber interesting to wander through the dilapidated architecture, some of which retained streaks of colour and malformed statues hinting at its former glory. The only downside of our meanderings around the grounds is that it was the heat of the day, which quickly sapped our energy as we tried to move around in limited shade. However this meant that there were few people about, so we could roam and snapp pictures with little interference.

Hue being the place for the royals whilst they lived it follows that they were also buried here. Hence the other historical attractions are the various resting places of those emperors. Like the world over (Egyptian pyramids, Chinese tombs etc.) these big-wigs had elaborate graves constructed. We visited 3 of them as part of a tour and were filled in on the kings’ characters and the influences that caused the design of each place, resulting in each being totally unique from the others. Saying that, they all followed the rules of Feng-Shui, so all faced south and nestling between a mountain and river (which complement like Ying to Yang).

As part of the tour we also visited the oldest Buddhist temple in town, the Thien Mu pagoda, and had a couple of symbols explained; stone-turtles for longevity and the lotus flower for purity (and is also the Vietnamese national flower). Along the way we visited an incense making village, interesting in itself. 

Pretty colours

Hue was a beautiful taste of the history and culture of Vietnam and certainly one of my favourite places so far. The icing on the cake was a visit to Mr Cu’s restaurant. Aside from having good food, the owner is also a photographer, whose done work for National Geographic amongst others, and his pictures are displayed on the walls of the restaurant, capturing Vietnamese life in stunning snapshots.