World Vietnam Dong Ha

100 days off in SE Asia

Hue Mar 7, 2006

7 March SUN

It was very sad to leave Hoi An but we had no time to lose, our schedule became very tight.. We took a bus to Hue in the morning, it was the usual horrible, slow ride we had started to get used to. The Vietnamese drivers are one of the worst we experienced, extremely slow and absolutely reckless. What's more it was an „open ticket" bus which was organized by a travel agency for backpackers. I wonder what the local buses could look like...

HUE

This citadel city on the bank of Perfume river (Song Huong) was the royal capital and the centre of political intrigue, cultural innovation and educational excellence in the 19th century.. In stark contrast with its name („hoa" means „peace" or „harmony") it experienced several massacres throughout its over 400-year-long history. The city also played an important role in the 1968 Tet Offensive as it was the only city in South Vietnam to be held by the communist for more than a few days. (The Tet offensive was a surprise attack of the VC during the celebration of the Lunar New Year on 31 January 1968. It was carried out. in over 100 cities and was followed by a US counterattack with massive firepower, bombing and shelling of heavily populated cities and the jungle. Although the loss of the North Vietnamese army was 10 times more and they were fought off, this had become the turning point of theVietnam war due to its massive media coverage. The American people started to lose their confidence in winning the war as the pictures of chaos and bloodbath beamed into their living rooms.) The 25 days of Hue's VC occupation ended up in the death of appr. 3000 civilians incl. merchants, Buddhist monks, Catholic priest and intellectuals. They were alternately shot, clubbed to death or buried alive. Many shallow mass graves were discovered at various spots of the city over the following few years. Today Hue is still a bustling city (pop. around 300K) with some rural atmosphere.

Tourism seem to have saved Hue's cultural sights from oblivion. Between 1975 and 1990 the old buildings were left to decay as political incorrect signs of the „feudal Nguyen dynasty". The potential of the place was fortunately rediscovered by local authorities in 1990 when restoration and preservation works started (boosted by a UNESCO designation as a World Heritage Site in 1993)

The bus dropped us in the budget hotel area, a small lane with around a dozen of cheapies. Adam stayed with the bags while we checked a few of them, our choice was hotel Dhong Nha. It was slightly cheaper than the others (still 10 USD for a double with the usual amenities) and our room had a nice balcony overlooking the city. We didn't bother with the lack of mosquito nets on the windows (which turned out to be a mistake). The owner surprised us with an unfamiliar feature of Hungary's image (it was not goulash or Puskas): he said the Hungarian roses are very famous. It sounded a nice complement as Hue seemed to be the flower capital of Vietnam. Flower vendors outnumbered food vendors in the city which tells you a lot in this hihgly cuisine based society.

Since it was already early afternoon and we planned to visit the Citadel, we didn't waste the time on an elaborate search of the perfect restaurant and chose Cafe on Thu Wheels opposite of our hotel. It was a proper cheap backpacker place with abundant graffitis on its walls. The menue contained the usual selection of several hundreds of Vietnamese dishes (Klara raved about the spicy spinach with tofu). We were soon approached by the owner, the energetic and attractive Madame Thu who offered her half-day motorbike trip to explore the sights around the town. This trip was highly praised by fellow travellers in the several volumes of guestbooks presented by her so we decided to abandon our original plan of visiting DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) tomorrow and booked this one instead. The DMZ tour would have been intersting as well, covering seven sights of memorial to the Vietnam war but it would have lasted 12 hours from 6 a.m. and we felt too tired for that.

We left Madame Thu and walked to the Citadel crossing the river on Phu Xian bridge. The Citadel has commanding parameters: it has a 10 km perimeter with 2 m thick ramparts and it is surrounded by a 30 m wide and 4 m deep moat. Wide areas of this giant complex is devoted to agriculture, a legacy of the destruction of 1968.

Our first glimpse of the Citadel was Vietnam's tallest flagpole, the 37m-high Flag Tower with an enormous Vietnamese flag. We entered the complex through one of its 10 gates (actually Quang Duc gate), the path leading to the imperial enclosure was flanked by two pools full with golden fish. We bought some fish food at a nearby vendor and when we started to feed them the show began. The ferce competition concentrated all the fish in a small area, some of them got above water level on the back of the others and the surface of the water transformed to a shiny forest of gawping mouths. When we walked further and just waved our hands over the water (as we ran out of fish food soon) this show was repeated. (it was very similar to the behaviour of the sacred fish near the Citadel of Sanli Urfa, the Kurdish „capital" of Southeast Turkey). The imperial enclosure was a citadel within citadel where the emperor's functions used to be carried out. The Thai Hoa Palace and the Halls of Mandarine were quite impressive although the amateurish renovation had its toll. Unfortunately the Forbidden Purple City, home of the emperor's several concubines was almost completely destroyed during the Tet offensive, now it is home of vegetable plots between which touch sensitive mimosa plants flourish.

We continued our walk north of the enclosure, it was a green area with two lakes (Tinh Tam and Tang Tau lake). There were some small islands on the lakes, we were only allowed to approach Tinh Tam lake island which was used for relaxation purposes by the emperor. It was quite a long walk to get back to the city centre along the Eastern wall of the citadel. We passed semi-rural areas, people greeted us everywhere (though we were in the middle of a city). The lookout became more urbanic as we were getting closer to the river and we found the „dentists' street", a wide main road dotted with dozens of dentists. We passed the main market on the north bank before returning to the south bank on Trang Tien bridge.

A well deserved excellent supper at Phuong Nam cafe was followed by drinks at Madame Thu with fellow travellers and a short internet session. Adam continued the night in the DMZ bar with some fellow British travellers he met in Thu's cafe.

8 March MON

We were having breakfast at Thu's when the motorbikes gathered in front of the cafe. All the drivers turned out to be the brothers of Madame Thu (she has got seven of them!). I persuaded her to give me a bike without a driver as I was quite experienced - I didn't tell her that it would be the 4th time for me (my experiences included driving a scooter on Ko Samui, and motorbikes in Kratie and Kampot (Cambodia)). I was brave enough beacuse the sights were supposed to be situated outside the city so I didn't expect to drive much in the chaos of Hue (I was wrong)

Our group of 8 bikes left the city around 8:30 and I was the only one without a driver. Fortunately we left the city very soon (and there was only one mad roundabout on the way) and we were driving along beautiful countryside with rice fields and houses on stilits. The first stop was Thanh Toan bridge 7 km outside of Hue, a Japanese covered bridge very similar to the one in Hoi An. It gets far less visitor and it is mainly used by locals to take a nap during the hottest part of the day. Next we took a sharp turn from the main road to a narrow mountain path which led to some military bunkers built during the colonial war. The location was tremendous as it was on the top of a hill overlooking a bend of the Perfume river. Coming down from the hill we stopped at Tu Hieu pagoda, a beautiful temple (with a small monastery) surrounded by dense. We have just caught the 11 o'clock prayer which had a vague human zoo effect as several tourist groups were crammed along the corridors of the relatively small temple and took loads of photograph on the praying monks (well, we did the same). One of the highlights of this roundtrip was the visit to the magnificent tomb of Tu Doc emperor. Tu Doc had the longest reign among Nguyen monarchs and he spent his life in ultimate imperial luxury with his 104 wives and countless concubines (he had no offsprings due to his sterility caused by smallpox infection). The construction of the complex started well before his death and led to an unsuccesful coup fuelled by the enormous expense and the forced labour involved.

The location of the emperor's remains is unknown as he was buried with his treasure and all the 200 slaves involved with the funeral were beheaded. The tomb complex consisted of the (empty) sepulchre itself, a stele pavillion (praising the accomplisments of the emperor), a temple for worship, an honour courtyard and a lotus pond surrounded by frangipanis and pine trees. (This was a typical layout for emperor's mausoleumss, there are several more of them around Hue.) There were also other temples and sepulchres and a lake pavillion (where the monarch used to entertain his concubines and himself with his poetry). It was all set in a lush environment with lakes, canals and footbridges. The overall impression was very Chinese, their influence seemed to be stronger and stronger as we are travelling North.

To get to the last stop of our tour was quite a challenge - at least for me. As we were reaching the outskirts of Hue the traffic got stronger awekening the butterflies in my belly. We got across a market where the crowd was so thick that we occassionaly had to stop. However, the worst was still to come because we crossed the Perfume river on a bridge where motorbikes had designated lanes on two sides of the bridge. It was so narrow that there was hardly any place between the fences and my hands desperately gripping the handbar. Eventually we reached our destination, the unofficial symbol of Hue, Thien Mu pagoda. It was originally founded in 1601 and had been destroyed and rebuilt several times. The pagoda had a superb location similar to the bunkers' we visited earlier: built on a hillock overlooking the Perfume river. A steep stairway led to the gate which opened to a large courtyard. The main sanctuary itself was not particularly interested (partly due to the usual rude renovation), the bronze Buddha statues were quite unique though. There were some interesing items displayed in side buildings such as a giant bell or an old Austin motorcar. (The latter one transported the monk Thich Quang Duc from here to HCMC for his famous self-immolation protesting against the ruling Diem regime in 1963.)

That was the end of the trip apart from riding back to Madame Thu. I was relieved indeed when I got off the bike but I passed the test after all. I felt I could even try myself at the toughest arena: HCMC.

We had a nice lunch at Thu's and where Madame Thu „suggested" Adam to buy some flowers to her as it was Women's Day. continued with a lazy afternoon (which included an on-line fix at one of the net cafes in the street). We picked Tinh Tham restaurant from LP for our dinner which was almost full (we took the last table). The restaurant's reputation for its „mock meat" dishes was more than well deserved, Klara's stag was the best choice and it absolutely tasted meat. Adam showed us the DMZ bar and we had another drink at Thu's.