Hue - Vietnam

June 20th - 21st, 2016

Arriving on the overnight bus we were lucky enough to be able to check in straight away to our hotel and freshen up with a shower before going out to explore the ancient capitol city of Hue, pronounced Hwey, whilst it was still early in the morning. First we found ourselves some breakfast, a scrumptious avocado smoothie, to set us up for the morning and then made our way across the bridge over the Perfume River and into the Citadel, with walls 2m thick and 10km in circumference this city must have been quite a sight in its heyday in the early 19th Century before war destroyed many of its impressive buildings. None the less, the originals that remain, along with the partially restored Imperial City are well worth the visit and give a great insight into how the city must have thrived back then. We walked to the Ngo Mon Gate, the main entrance to the Imperial City and after purchasing our ticket entered through this masterpiece of Nguyen architecture with its 5 entrances (including 2 for elephants!) and the Five Phoenix Watchtower pavilion perched on top with its 9 roofs resembling 5 birds in flight. The Imperial City is enclosed by another wall and within this is further enclosed the Forbidden Purple City which was the personal domain of the emperor in which only eunuch servants and concubines were aloud to enter. Other restored buildings included the Thai Hoa Palace with rich gold and red lacquer where ceremonies were held, The Royal Theatre where they host music performances and is sumptuously decorated and the Mieu Temple with alters dedicated to the royal emperors. Many other buildings are little more than grass covered stone outlines but there is a constant restoration project going on which hopefully one day will bring this magnificent site back to its full glory. We enjoyed looking around this city within a city, long covered walkways that yielded gentle cross winds aiding in the attempt to stay cool, yet ultimately failing as we crossed sun drenched courtyards to reach other sights of interest. Eventually we had to concede defeat to the sun and after a brief look around the lovely dark wood pillared Antique Objects Museum which our entrance ticket also gave us access to, went back to the hotel to cool down.

We emerged late in the day when the sun was on its way down and crossed the bridge once more into the Citadel, this time walking along the rivers banks through a large market and over to an open space where many families were gathered helping their children to fly exotic looking, brightly coloured kites. A lovely sight, to see so many birds, dragons and other beasts fluttering in the air with happy, excited children running round below trying to keep them from falling and parents chatting and relaxing in the early evening, a real look into daily life and surprisingly no other tourists there! As the sun set we headed back into the town and found ourselves a little cafe to get the traditional Vietnamese 'Pho', a beef and noodle soup, for dinner. It is a particular speciality in Hue and was absolutely delicious as well as being super cheap, so we left feeling well satisfied and ready for bed once we got back to our hotel.