Hue

Location: Hue, Vietnam

For Carter's last three days with us, we booked a trip to Hue (pronounced "hoo-ay" -ish), 80 miles north of Hoi An, for three days and two nights.  Hue was the seat of Nguyen Dynasty emperors and the nation's capital from 1802–1945. 

We took the bus up, not realizing it was a 'sleeping' bus which, instead of seats has recliners. They are stacked 2 high and there are 3 rows down the length of the bus allowing people to sleep or sit up during long journeys. The back packers love them as they can travel overnight and save on a nights lodging. This sounds like a great idea but, unfortunately, they are designed for Vietnamese size passengers – not us!! Julie could barely fit in them her toes were smushed up against the front and Mark....well there was just no way! Luckily, right at the back was a 3 wide seat and he managed to fit in there diagonally. He was also helped by the fact that it was only a 3 hour trip.

There were lots of monks visiting Tu Duc, taking selfies :)

The afternoon we arrived we booked a private car to tour three Nguyen dynasty tombs. Tu Duc, Khai Din and Minh Mang.

The first 2 were similar styles but we thoroughly enjoyed them all, especially the prolific and intricate mosaics at the Khai Din tomb.

Stone guardians at Khai Din

The mosaics at Khai Din were spectacular

While we were at the Tu Duc tomb, we met an architect, who along with an artist and some workmen was renovating mosaics. He was very friendly and talked with us for a while, showing us their work on some in-progress and recently completed mosaic art.

Next day we went to the Citadel, a walled and moated city that was started in 1362 by the Nguyen dynasty, and took 203 years to complete. Within the citadel is the walled Ancient City and the innermost enclosure is the walled Purple Forbidden City in which only the Imperial family was allowed. We hired a guide for an hour to explain the history and what we were seeing, thank goodness. We then spent a few additional hours just wandering around and taking it all in. The exterior wall is 11km long! Not too many pictures this day as it was drizzling during most of our time there.

Very ornate gutter spout

We took a boat up the river to the Thien Mu pagoda on our last day. The boat was ornate and the family that owned it lived on it and moved all their bed rolls and cooking equipment out of the way to make room for tourists. We had the boat to ourselves (other than the crew) and it was a lovely trip.

While there we found a garden used by the monks that contained many different songbirds in cages. Lovely music in a nice, quiet place.

No idea what this plant is

Our boat waited for us as we walked around the pagoda

Landing back at Hue

We have seen a lot of old buildings now, but each one is interesting and slightly different. Of course we were offered souvenirs and trinkets to buy on the way up and back. The people here have so little we really don't mind giving them a little extra income.

We took the bus home and Mark was able to reserve the back seat in advance, thank goodness, because the bus was full and he was glad to have a full king sized bed to stretch out in.