Hue, The City Tour

I wasn't sure how I wanted to go about seeing the sights of Hue. There were some things about the city that I wanted to see. There was the citadel and a couple of other things. I also knew this was sort of the best base from which to go and see the DMZ of Vietnam. When I arrived at the Hue train station, I accepted a ride from a representative of one of the hotels in town and got a reasonable for a reasonable price. They also had a helpful, if a bit persistent, front desk that pushed the city tours on visitors. Now there is nothing wrong with that. I suppose I would, too. But I listened and then decided to go with the city tour they suggested and then the DMZ tour as well. The DMZ tour involved a lot of travel as the spots to be visited were a hundred kilometers away. And the cost was 15 dollars. I had no qualms about that one. But the city tour included things that, had I really paused to consider it carefully, I didn't really care about seeing, among them three tombs of three former emperors. I had really only heard about the Hue Citadel, and that was, truth to tell, the only thing I really cared to see. There was a pagoda on the tour. Yawn! I've been seeing lots of pagodas and Buddhist temples. There was an old house for the mandarins of the emperor. I've seen plenty of old houses, although the history surrounding them was a bit interesting. And there was an incense and other craft village to be visited. I've seen lots of craft places and all of that. I really didn't care if I went there or not. So on the tour, there was only one of the spots that I really gave a rat's ass about seeing. Not a really great choice, all in all. But I would see what Hue was all about and it was only 9 dollars, so...

We started off at the Hue Citadel. This was a rather large stone-walled city from the time of the most recent emperors of Vietnam. There were 13 of them. The last one ceded his power and control of the country to Ho Chi Minh in 1945 after the French were sent packing. During the following 30 years, between the first Indo-China war (the one with the French trying to hang on to their colonies), the second Indo-China war (the one where the Americans were trying to keep another domino in Communist domino chain from falling), and the elements, much of the glory of the citadel had been turned to ash and dust. The walls remained. Some structures remained as well. But most of the buildings were bombed or otherwise destroyed. Since the country was re-unified under one flag in 1975, there have been restoration and rebuilding efforts taking place and a lot has been put back, but there is still lots to be done.

The outer wall has survived.

The wall surrounding the royal quarters also still stands. It is quite impressive.

This was where we had to pay the first of five (!?!) extra entrance fees. No wonder it was such a cheap tour. The fee was almost 3 dollars. Inside we saw the royal coronation building.

In the coronation building, we were unable to photograph the rather opulent throne, in order to protect it, but the original plan of the royal area was fair game. So this is what is looked like at one time..

...and this is what it looks like these days. In time things will be returned to their original plan, but for now, one has to use one's imagination. In the emperor's enclave, there was a house for the emperor, one for his mother, one for his concubines, and children. There was a place for the education of the children and all sorts of others. But there was no place specifically for the emperor's wife. I guess it was tough to be a royal wife in that time.

We looked around inside the area for about half an hour. And much in all as it was a place of royalty at one time, it really was just a big empty space where a bunch of possibly impressive old-style buildings used to be. I am getting a bit jaded with this part of the world, I think. It will be good to move into central Asia, I think.

There were some big bronze urns near the entrance. There were a whole bunch of them actually, all through the area. They were to represent the longevity of the empire and used to have big chunks of gold in them, with the royal seal stamped on them. The gold is gone now. :)

After finishing with the citadel, we moved on to the house of one the mandarin's, called the Garden House. This was a cheap entry at only 50 cents. Aside from just being an old-style house, with some rather strong Chinese appearing influences, the house did have this wall guarding it to the front and then a pond as well.

The spot where Hue is located was specifically chosen for its Feng Shui characteristics. (I told you there were some decidedly Chinese influences.) In particular, Hue is located in a valley bounded by a mountain to each of the directions south, west and north. To the east is the sea, so the city is well-guarded. In addition, to the south of the citadel is the Perfume River. Beyond the river is another small mountain. These are said to guard the citadel from attack by demons of the sky and of the ground. This arrangement is symbolically replicated by building a wall and a pond in each of the houses of the mandarins (who, despite the name that sounds like they are Chinese, were the civil servants who worked for the emperors.

Then we headed to the Buddhist pagoda. Our guide, somewhat derisively, told us that in Cambodia and other places, everything Buddhist is called a temple, but here in Vietnam a temple is a place of worship while a pagoda is both a place for people to come to worship and a place that is an active Buddhist monastery. I'm not sure of the reason for the scorn that came through the guide's voice as he told us about this, but it was most definitely there. We hung out there for about half an hour. It was a serene place.

They also had a relic from a Buddhist monk who was at this monastery. He was very upset at the government of the south. They were Catholic and were repressing all other religions, including Buddhism. He got so upset that he drove his car down to Ho Chi Minh City and then doused himself with gasoline and self-immolated. It is a famous picture from the time. They preserve his car on the premises.

We headed for lunch and then it was on to the tombs. I opted not to visit the first two tombs. I have been finding tombs to be rather uninteresting. Instead, I and another guy who didn't want to visit tombs headed off into the surrounding village. There is a river passing by the tomb and a village by the river. We stopped and chatted with a couple of old women who were sitting by the river. They were hilarious. And they spoke not a word of English. Since we spoke no Vietnamese, it made for an unintelligible conversation that probably did not follow at all, although we did seem to agree that the woman wanted us to mail her the photos we took of her. It was a delightful time we spent instead of visiting the tomb.

We passed on the second tomb as well. I don't know what it looked like on the inside, but I think we got a much better view of it by walking down the road a couple hundred meters.

And there was this person walking through the rice fields that also made a nice photo.

Before the last tomb we stopped at a village where they make incense sticks and conical hats. We didn't really stop off in a village. We stopped at one of the shops in the village so that we could have an opportunity to buy something, cleverly disguised as an opportunity to see how these things are made.

But they made interesting patterns with the incense sticks.

Finally we headed to the third and final tomb. Our guide had told us that if we wanted to visit one of the tombs this was the one to visit. It was in its original condition and it was beautiful. Well, I wouldn't go that far, but it was quite nice.

And I did find the actual burial spot to be quite understated, far simpler than I would have expected.

A dragonboat took us back to town on the Perfume River, to complete a nice, but in the end unwanted, tour day. I saw a lot of Hue, but I hadn't really been interested in much of it, unfortunately.