Another of our favourite (!) overnight trains took us from Hanoi to Hue (pronounced Hway – hence the awful pun above!). The journey was pretty smooth by Vietnamese standards, however our cabin mates – a late 60’s Vietnamese couple – decided that 5:30 am was too much of a lie in and that it was time to put their portable radio on the news channel at full volume; after about half an hour Fran had given them sufficient evils for them to turn it off. This gave us about 15 minutes to cram in some sleep before the Vietnamese conductors decided to blare their music over the carriage tannoy – happy days!
Whizzing through Hanoi
Water buffalo chilling out
Stop, look, listen
Anyway, once we arrived and after the usual tout-avoiding, we eventually checked into our hostel and got exploring the Citadel. Hue was just preparing for a big festival so there were workmen everywhere frantically cleaning up, fixing and illuminating the city. This included erecting big sound systems and stages – I’m guessing the festival wasn’t going to be like Glastonbury or Bestival but from the buzz in the city it sounded pretty good! The Citadel isn’t actually that old, it was started in the early nineteenth century, but it’s still pretty impressive. A moat surrounds the thick brick walls of the Citadel and further walls enclose the Forbidden Purple City (great name)! One strange feature of the palace was a tennis court – apparently one of the emperors liked his Western sports, apparently including both tennis and rowing!
Hue’s citadel, approaching from the South
Escaped monkey captured on film
The usual ‘bell and drum’ combo from Chinese tradition
Hide and seek!
The following day we hired some mean machine bicycles to explore the temples and pagodas surrounding Hue. Though there are a number of mausoleums around Hue, we opted to go into one of the bigger ones so we didn’t get too mausoleumed-out! The Mausoleum of Emperor Tu Duc was about an hour cycle from Hue – once out of the city we passed through the usual rolling pastures and an amazing-smelling village that made incense sticks! Upon entering the Mausoleum you are greeted with a whiff of magnolia and the relaxed vibe continues as you make your way around the beautifully landscaped lake and gardens. Apparently Emperor Tu Duc was a bit of a rubbish king – he spent the majority of his time writing romantic poetry apparently! This gives the impression he was a devoted husband which, though it might have been the case, he did have about 20 different wives so being devoted to all 20 would have been hard work! Anyway, he commissioned his Mausoleum only a few years into his reign and as such once it was completed he had a number of years to make the most of this haven of tranquillity before his time was up – a bit morbid but at the same time pretty cool!
Setting off
Incense overload!
One of the numerous lily-covered lakes at Tu Duc’s mausoleum
Rugged old courtyard, apparently for the Emperor’s ‘minor wives’!
Waterside pagoda
Some impressively long dragons
Scary-looking spider
Main temple
A column and a wally!
Our last stop before heading home was the Thien Mu Pagoda. This pagoda was founded in 1601 by Buddhist monks and is still in use today. Its most notable event in recent times was when one of its monks burned himself to death in Saigon in 1963 to protest at the President’s repressive regime. The powder-blue Austin used by the monk to drive to Saigon is now on display as a memorial to the monk. The tower itself is an impressively ornate structure – seven tiers tall apparently to represent Buddha’s seven incarnations on earth. Anyway, after a relatively cultured and tiring day we managed to get back to our hostel in time for ‘Free Beer Hour’ to redress the balance!!!
The pagoda through the trees
View over the Perfume River towards the mountains
Cycle of happiness!
Beer
The following morning we departed for Hoi An via Da Nang, where the next blog post will pick up… :)
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