HUE - 22 - 23 MAY 

Hi everyone, 

we left beautiful Hoi An on 22nd may and headed for Hue on a 4 hour bus trip, with simon feeling alot better!  We had heard that there was not much to do in Hue so we decided to just see the sights as quick as possible and head on upto Hanoi. 

So the minute we got there we went and booked our train tickets to Hanoi and then took a cyclo to the Citadel and Imperial City, the home to the many emperors during the Nguyen Dynasty.  The Vietnamese are not proud of this period and have only recently realised the potential for tourism and declared it a world heritage site. 

The place is quite vast, but as with nearly everything in vietnam you are unable to apprecaite half of it due to the bombing during the vietnamese/amercian war.

The moated citadal has a 10km perimetre and built in 1804.  The citadel has 10 fortified gates, each reached via a bridge across the moat.  Outside stands the flag pole, the largest in vietnam and is pretty huge!!   

The emperors official functions were carried out in the Imperial enclosure, which is a citadal within a citadal, with 4 gates.  The most famous gate is the Ngo Mon Gate faecin the flag tower.  The central passageway was for the emperors use only, with everyonr else using the doors either side, including us tourists!  On top of the gate is Ngu phung (belvedere of the 5 phoenixes) where the emperor appeared on importnat occasions. 

Within the imperial enclosure there is the Thai Hoa Palace, (where the emperor met with his mandarins), halls of the mandarins, (where the mandarins waited till the emperor was ready to see them),  the nine dynasty urns (urns which symbolised the the power and stability of the Nguyen throne), the forbidden purple city, (which was huge and used soley for the personal use of the emperor and housed his many concubines (mistresses), although this has been completely destroyed during the war), the emperor's reading room, and 2 huge lakes where the emperor went to relax!

The heat was unbearable that day so after sweltering in the heat for over 2 hours we headed back for some lunch and an air con'd room!!  there wasn't much night life so just had a quiet one as had another trip the following day. 

The next day we were booked on a day trip to visit various sites along the Perfume river, so called due to the many frangpani trees that line the river. 

The first stop was the Thien Mu Pagoda.  It is a 21m high octagonal tower, built on a hill and is 7 storeys high.  Each of the 7 storeys is dedicated to a manushi-buddha, which is a buddah that appeared in human form.  Within the sanctuary is the austin car that the monk Thich Quang Duc used to travel to Saigon  and publicly  burned himself to death in protest against the policies of President Ngo Dinh Diem. 

There are many young resident monks within this Pagoda, they join the Pagoda and only have part of thier head shaved whilst they are learning about buddism.  Once they are ordained their heads are completely shaved. 

From there we visited 2 of the royal tombs.  These are tombs are extravangant mausoleums of the rulers from the Nguyen dynasty. 

The first tomb was visisted was the Tomb of Emperor Tu Duc which he used before and after his death.  This place was massive.  The emperor lived here and in the imperial city.  He had the longest reign and and lived in luxury.  He has 1 wife and 103 concubines, but no off spring.  The emperor had constructed a huge steele, on which he wrote how good he was as an emperor and all that he had done for Vietnam, apparently it was normally your successor that wrote it after you had died, however he did admit that he had made mistakes and chose to name his tomb Khiem, which means modest.  Tu Duc is not actually interred here, the site where his remains are buried (along with great treasure) are not known.  Due to the danger of grave robbers the 200 servants who buried him were beheaded.   

The second Tomb was that of Emperor Minh Mang.  Again this place was pretty huge aswell.  The emperor ordered the construction of this tomb but he did not survive to live in the grounds, dying shortly before it was completed.  His 500 concubines, wife and 142 children! however did live in it once he passed away.      

We had had enough of tombs and sight seeing after this and again lost the will to live with the intense heat and humidity so headed back to a hot shower and air coon room.  That evening we went and watched the sun set over the perfume river before moving on to Hanoi the next morning.