Sitting on the banks of the beautiful Perfume River, Hue has traditionally been one of Vietnams main cultural, religious and educational centres and a key stop for people travelling through the country. The town is probably our favourite in Asia. It was the seat of the thirteen Ngyen emperors between 1802 and 1945 and was made the capital of the country by the first emperor. Hence the town was very prosperous and so contains a lot of beautiful buildings, many of which are now becomming well preserved after many years of neglect since 1975. There is an 'inner' walled city - the Citadel which is surrounded by a 6 mile wall and a moat, virtually all of which is still standing and now in good condition. There are ten highly decorative gates leading into the Citadel, which also houses 'a city within a citadel' the most sacred site of the Imperial Purple City. Sadly much of this particular area was destroyed in the wars of 1947 and in 1968. Some of the other main attractions are the spectacular temples and tombs of the Nguyen Emperors, which are located outside Hue. Sadly these were left to decay between 1975 and 1990 as they were deemed politically incorrect by the Communist authorities as they were believed to be a reflection of the feudal system under the Emperors. Thankfully, there has now been some investment to protect this heritage, which is another Unesco World Heritage location and it is now easier to travel and see some of these spectacular buildings. Access to these tombs and temples, which sit either side of the Perfume river, is by taking a leisurley river cruise on a dragon boat. One of the key locations is Thien Mu Pagoda, a working monastery that is marked by a 7 tiered Pagoda at its entrance where we were fortunate to catch the tail end of prayers for the monks who live there. This temple achieved world-wide notoriety in 1963, when a monk Thich Quang Duc, from this temple burned himself alive in protest in downtown Saigon. The moment was captured on TV and is one of the evocative images of the 60's. We also visited two of the Royal Tombs (Tu Doc and Minh Mang) which were the retreats of these two emperors during their individual reigns. Emperor Tu Doc was an interesting character. Only about 4' 7'' tall he was smaller than his empress when sitting on the throne. He had 104 wives and concubines, who lived at his retreat, though he never fathered a child - the story is that he became sterile after contracting smallpox. He was so afraid of grave robbers and so he ordered that upon his death, his body should be buried in a secret location and so that the location should never revealed he ordered that each of the 200 people who presided over his final resting place should be beheaded - talk about paranoid! The tomb for Emperor Minh Mang was no mean feat either as it took 10,000 men over 4 years to build this tomb. One thing that has struck us about these Buddhist temples and tombs in Vietnam is the difference in architecture. The buildings are certainly not as ornate as many of the Buddhist temples we visited in Thailand and they seem to have a strong Chinese influence in their styling. Another key contrast is the amount of space. These are not just temples but complexes of buildings over many acres of land. There seemed to be acres of grassland and many lotus filled lakes and rivers built into the design, making them so much more peaceful than any others we have seen. In more modern times Hue was the site of some of the bloodiest battles during the Vietnam War especially during the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive of 1968. Hue was the only city in the south of the country to be held by the communists for more than a few days. There are still the remnants of the damage from the bombs on the bridges and walls of the town. In fact, our cyclo driver made the bell on his bicycle from the shell of a bomb. Immediatley upon taking Hue, Vietnams third largest city, communist political cadres implemented detailed plans to remove Hue's uncopoerative elements.Thousands of people were rounded up during house to house searches, conducted according to lists of names that had been meticulously prepared months before. During the 3 and a half weeks that Hue remained under communist control, some 3000 civilians, including merchants, Buddhist Monks, Catholic priests, intellectuals and a number of travellers were summarily shot, clubbed to death or buried alive. The victims were buried in shallow graves around the city. Tomorrow we are off to the de-militarised zone, just north of the city, so we will write more then.