Grave Diggers

  Hue, Vietnam
Monday, November 3, 2008

Though far from off the tourist trail (which we are hoping to do), our next stop was Hue. According to Lonely Planet we needed to be ready for the tout onslaught, and though it occurred it wasn't nearly as bad as we were expecting! Let's hope Hanoi gets by like this as well!!!!

06. Entrance to a temple

Hue was the Vietnamese Imperial City from 1802 till 1945, during the Nguyen dynasty. The emperors, being puppets for the French Imperialists, lived pointless self indulgent lives. Hidden within their 'Forbidden Purple City', within the Imperial citadel, within the Citadel of the city itself their perspective of life was rather myopic.

03. Mike in the Imperial City

Each Emperor had multiple wives and concubines, whose only other male company were eunuchs - as they posed no threat.

The French managed to destroy huge tracts of the Imperial City when they regained short lived control of Vietnam after the 2nd world war. The communist government pretty much allowed the rest to fall into ruin till about 20 years ago when they realised the tourist potential.

04. Kirsty in the Forbidden Purple City

They are now slowly but surely trying to restore portions of it back to its former glory. Though according to the ticket office it would only take 90 minutes, we easily managed to wander 3 hours around this devastated, yet still impressive place our first afternoon in Hue.

Our good dead while here was to go for supper at the 'Japanese Restaurant.' It was started and run by a Japanese teacher who moved to Hue over 10 years ago to start a centre for street children.  The older children get to gain experience there, while profits go to his centre for the younger children. We won too, as the food was great!

After supper we could have been back  in London, as we watched a movie and then had what felt like our first lie-in for months! We managed to stay in bed till after 9 - admittedly very early in London terms for us! Our day continued with the slightly delayed approach with a late breakfast and a slow start trying to organise bikes. Around noon we set off, in very close heat, in search of the 'Tiger Fighting Arena'. This was off the tourist trail and sounded rather interesting. Every year the emperor ordered a fight between a tiger and an elephant in this arena - a very small coliseum type structure. There is still, evidently, evidence of the tigers trying desperately to claw their way out of their cages. The fight was always fixed so the elephant (representing the monarchy) would win. The tigers (representing a rebellion) were evidently drugged and had their teeth and claws removed.

We thought we would be safe from the multiple touts badgering us while cycling, however we picked up a carpenter (we read Tour Guide) on a scooter who kept following us. When we sped up so did he, when we slowed so did he and when we tried stopping he waited for us. We did eventually manage to shake him. However on getting to the tiger arena things got even stranger.

As we approached the arena it was obvious it wasn't on the tourist trail as it was boarded up. We could see through two gates into the arena and while peering through the wooden slats, a girl appeared from nowhere trying to ply us with postcards and take us to the elephant temple (we had never heard of it though). Things got stranger still when through broken English she said 'men local mafia', and we turned around to find a man in close quarters behind us. Playing the stupid thankful tourists, and in ever improving Afrikaans, we hot footed it out of there - straight into a graveyard! Once out the 'mafia zone' we continued cycling towards more graves in the form of the Emperors' mausoleums.
 
We decided to visit Tu Duc's mausoleum, being the largest and closest to the city. He reigned for the longest

07. Dwarfing the Guards

period, had 103 wives without a single heir, and he actually used the place before he died. The emperors definitely had too much time on their hands. He would spend his time there hunting (on what looked like 10m by 20m island) and composing poetry.  Stranger still was the fact that he designed the site for a tomb and a temple to worship him once he was dead.  However he was never buried there. No-one knows where his body nor his vast wealth was buried as all 200 servants responsible for his burial were beheaded!

For the cooler portion of the afternoon we cycled around looking for Tu Hieu pagoda, which seems like it exists in the Bermuda triangle guarded vehemently by a couple of touts. Making our getaway, we cycled along quiet back roads with friendly waving children, all very pleasant and a good respite from the tourist traps within the area! Our only problem was not really finding the sights we were looking for. We later discovered the pagoda was in this dimension, but we had got the names confused and where looking at the wrong one!

Supper was a spread out affair at opposite ends of the city. We tried a very local Vietnamese restaurant that seemed only too happy to ignore us foreigners, however the food was excellent - even if we didn't quite get what we hoped for! We then went for dessert and a taste of the local Dalat wine at a very friendly tourist place.
Waiting for the bus on our last day, we walked around the city looking at, what we assumed to be the local Notre Dame church, market and a pagoda, before waiting out a flash storm in the shopping centre. We then took the overnight bus to Hanoi, supposed to be for westerners, but Kirsty found it small!

Arriving in Hanoi we were immediately hit by the Tout who told us a taxi would take us to their office in town, till we said we had a hotel in which case you can arrange your own transport!