After a relatively short 5 hour transfer we arrived around lunchtime in the town of Hue. Hue served as the political capital from 1802 to 1945 serving under 13 different emperors. It is these emperors or rather the emperors tombs that bring visitors to this deeply cultural and religious town. Before the rise of Hanoi as Vietnams capital city it was Hue that was the place to see and be seen! After checking into our lovely hotel we grabbed a quick bite to eat before heading on foot to check out the town. The heart of the action lies along the banks of the perfume river so we made that our first stop to have a closer look at the infamous dragon boats of which there were plenty. After exploring the riverside we walked to the Citadel, a former imperial city constructed in 1804 and surrounded completely by 6m high moat walls it is a dominating feature of the town centre. Within the moat walls is a 2.5km square green area filled with plants and stone features and is a really pretty place to walk around and even though much of it has fallen into disrepair is needs only a little imagination to envisage how grand and important this area used to be. Within the Citadel there was an imperial enclosure displaying artifacts from the various emperors as well as explaining a little more about the citadel and the purpose it used to serve hundreds of years ago. In front of the citadel is a giant parade ground and it would have been fantastic to see the shows that would have been put on there for the grand emperors and their families. Feeling suitably inspired by all the talk of emperors from the days of yore we went in search of a tour for the next day to visit some of the tombs and maybe take a ride in a dragon boat!

The next morning we were collected from our hotel to spend the day on the perfume river stopping along the way to visit temples and tombs aplenty! Within minutes of getting onto the boat we were sailing right through the middle of a fishing village which if anything looked even poorer and sadder than the one in Hoi An, how these people manage to live on these tatty old boats that barely look sea worthy is beyond me and it is a stark reminder of this countries poverty. After leaving the fishing village we made our way to a pagoda called Thien Mu Pagoda, constructed in 1601 it is one of the most famous and photographed structures in Vietnam. After having a look around the pagoda itself we then went in search of the many monks rumored to use the gardens for study and prayer. We had timed our visit perfectly and arrived just in time to observe some of the monks in prayer. The gardens around the pagoda were surprisingly quiet given the number of tourists milling around and after having a brief walk around it was back on the boat to our next stop. The next stop was a bit of a surprise as it wasn't on our agenda, a chance to watch a kung fu demonstration. The whole purpose of the show was to demonstrate to us that it wasn't all about fighting and violence but that kung fu is more about focusing the power of the mind to channel inner energy to various parts of the body to block out pain and find seemingly super human strength. The finale of the demonstration involved one of the men balancing his entire body weight on the tip of a spear. After the show it was back to the boat to head further up the perfume river stopping along the way to take in an optional temple which we decided to miss as it didn't get much of a write up and on arrival didn't seem to warrant the admission fee. We opted instead to take a walk along the riverside to watch all the fishing boats and dragon boats come and go. After the temple we had a delicious lunch on the boat whilst making our way along the river to the coach awaiting to take us to the 1st of the emperors tombs. As you would imagine there have been quite a number of emperors over the 500 or so years but at over a tenner each to get in to each tomb the tour limits to two tombs one of which is optional. The first tomb we visited was that of Minh Mang who ruled Vietnam from 1820 to 1840. As you can imagine being emperors they all want to go out in style and want to outdo their predecessors so rather than being just a tomb it was actually an entire complex with temples and shrines and statues all over the place. We first visited the temple and living quarters before going to what I thought was the tomb as it was a giant stone coffin with what looked like a headstone on top covered in some ancient script. Rather disappointingly it is not the real tomb, this casket is empty but is used to give everyone somewhere to pay their last respects. As is common place among emperors they arrange for their final resting place to be within the grounds nearby but in a hidden location not known to anyone! It sounds crazy but it turns out that they believe they need all their riches and possessions to take to the after life and they believe if their resting place were common knowledge they would be uprooted at a later date to have all the treasures confiscated! I have to agree with his thinking however in the case of Emperor Mang he arranged for the team who laid him to rest to be executed when they returned from the burial to ensure not a soul knew where he was and so to this day he is buried somewhere underground with a whole array of gold and jewels which despite their best efforts modern technology cannot locate due to the thick stone used for the casket being untraceable using modern sonar and x-ray!. Once we had a good look around all the buildings it was back on the bus to the second tomb that of Emperor Tu Duc. A similar grand layout for Tu Duc with the river running though the middle of the grounds and a prayer area out over the water it was a very peaceful and pretty outlook. As with the first temple there was the usual stone casket complete with headstone but no emperor within. He is buried somewhere within a walled off area not known to any living person. The story of this Emperor is much sadder as despite having about 12 wives he was unable to father any children and so left no family to speak of. In Vietnam your family is your legacy and so at the time of Tu Ducs death his final will and testament speaks of how disappointed he felt at how little he had contributed to the world and to Vietnam at the time of his death! After taking in all that was to offer at the tomb we made our way to the final stop on our tour. We were going to a small town famous for making incense sticks and the iconic conical hats (see attached photos)! I should explain that within hours of arriving in Vietnam you cannot help but notice the smell of incense everywhere you go and this is because it is part of the daily prayers to light incense and place it within their offerings at every prayer the result being that at times the air is thick with the smell of incense creating a huge demand for hundreds of these smelly burning sticks. I had always assumed that due to the volumes required they must be manufactured within a factory so it was interesting so see when we arrived a little lady sitting with a handful of sticks and a giant ball of incense clay rolling small amouts onto each stick with unbelievable ease. Having endured 3 weeks smelling the sticks we found it pretty easy to turn down the offer to buy packs with upwards of 200 sticks even if it was a bargain at only a dollar!! The more entertaining part of the stop was watching another lady sitting on a tiny chair making a conical hat. You will see from our photos that these hats are a Vietnamese mainstay and everyone from fishermen to street sellers use the hats to protect their heads from the sun. Every single shop you visit in Vietnam will have a small pile of conical hats for sale so I can only imagine how many must be made and sold daily to meet the demand. It would have been lovely to buy one of these hats as a memento of our trip however having both tried them on and looked absolutely ridiculous we had to leave the conical hats to our more vertically challenged cousins! All in all the whole tour had been a success and whilst it might have been nice to be given a little more information on some of the places we visited but with a little bit of imagination it was still amazing to visit places constructed hundreds of years ago that were still standing today as a testament to the emperors who oversaw their construction prior to their deaths!