Day 27 - Hue, Vietnam

Day 27 – Hers.

I awoke early – to the sound of the motorbikes whizzing Hue residents to work.  I stepped onto the balcony and watched a young girl in a house opposite our hotel place incense in her family altar, bowing her head with hands together three times – and a man in another house tend to his third floor garden.  The hotel breakfast catered for Western tourists with eggs, bacon and toast (using the very sweet bread they use here) but I was enticed this morning by the incredible array of Vietnamese delicacies – wafer-thin rice ‘pancakes’ and plump steamed dumplings filled with beef, 3 types of spring rolls, home-made yoghurt, soups, noodles, steamed vegetables, dragon fruit, watermelon, passion fruit, fried rice...it went on and on. 

Our fellow travellers appeared around 7:45 and we were all breakfasted and in the lobby to meet Vinh at the appointed 8:30 for a 6 hour tour of the main sights of Hue.  Hue was the imperial city of the Nguyen dynasty – 13 kings from 1802-1945, mainly puppets of the French colonial administration.  The citadel, housing the ‘Imperial City’ and ‘Forbidden City’, was built between 1802 and 1832. It was the home to the king, his concubines and children, eunuchs and the mandarins – local officials – when they were at court.  There were also two sections for the French colonial officials.  Vinh explained the history and many stories surrounding the symbols, temples and statues in the grounds – pointing out original features and those reconstructed after the demolition of much of the area during the TET offensive and several natural disasters.  He showed us the nine 10-ton bronze cannons – 5 representing the 5 elements (metal, wood, water, fire and earth) and 4 representing the seasons – that the French had moved because they feared shots from their original positions would reach the French quarter of the city.  He explained the symbology of the colours and designs on the clothing and flags of the court.  He walked us through courtyards and temples, past walls with 45 year-old bullet holes and symbols of longevity made of blue and white ceramic pieces, typical of the Nguyen era.  Two hours later, our heads bursting with information, we headed off to the Thien Mu temple with its tall pagoda overlooking the Perfume River  -  the river that separated the citadel from the people.

Thien Mu is a beautiful temple and a working monastery.  We watched about 30 monks undertake their 11:00 prayers – alongside quite a number of other Vietnamese and Western visitors, some of the Western visitors embarrassing us with their inappropriate dress and disrespectful behaviour in a holy place.  The golden-robed monks circled the altar three times chanting melodiously, then after a gong sounded, listened while the head monk prayed a solo in front of the altar.  We also saw the working kitchen of the monastery – feeding a large number of children, some with shaven heads.  Vinh told us that if a couple finds it difficult to conceive a child, they come to the temple to pray.  If they then have a child, that child is seen as a child of the temple and must go to live at the temple from age 6-18.  If a child intends to stay at the monastery after that – to become a monk – his or her head is shaved.  Children who plan to return to their villages at 18 keep their long hair.

From the temple, we boarded a dragon boat and cruised back along the Perfume River to the harbour.  We climbed back into the minibus – filling our water bottles for the third time this morning -  and headed off to the tombs of the Nguyen kings.

There are 10 royal tomb complexes in the area, each set out like a mini-citadel to ensure a comfortable afterlife – only 4 of the tombs are very large because the French preferred the kings to come to the throne aged 10 or 12 and rule only a couple of years, so most kings did not have time to complete large works. The largest complex – and the one we visited – is Tu Doc. Whilst he was alive, the king used his tomb complex as a retreat, visiting to relax and write poetry.  When he died, 70 identical sarcophagi were buried in the surrounding woodland to ensure his body was never dug up and desecrated – and all those involved in the arrangements were killed.  To this day, no one knows where he is actually buried – the sarcophagus on show is one of the 69 decoys.  There is also a tomb for the queen – the queen was the king’s mother, not his wife – and temples to his concubines who had to live within the temple complex once he had passed away. (This is better than the fate of the Chinese concubines who were buried alive with the dead emperor....)

Accompanied by the chirps of birds and buzz of insects, we followed paths through gardens and arches, past ponds and crumbling walls decorated with symbols of the Nguyen dynasty, over ornamental bridges and under banyan trees – the whole thing looking like the setting for the King Louis scene in Disney’s Jungle Book. 

By this time, we had been exploring sights and listening to Vinh’s explanations for 6 hours in draining heat and humidity.  He asked us if we wanted to go further to see one last temple within the complex, but none of us felt that we could take any more in.  We climbed gratefully back into the minibus and returned to the hotel for a shower, some lunch and a swim.

 

 Day 27 – His

As Patti mentioned the ancient Vietnamese have a curious conception of elements. According to them, there are only 5 (metal, wood, water, fire and earth). This contrasts with the ancient western concept of 4 elements (earth, wind, fire and water) so we asked Vinh about this. His explanation was that you couldn’t see air therefore as far as he was concerned it didn’t exist. I liked this idea so I tested it. I tried hiding behind several things to see if I ceased to exist. But it didn’t work – which some might say was not a good thing.

The day was scorching and we all sloped along panting like dogs until we got back to the hotel. About the only thing we could all think about was getting into the air conditioning and the pool for a little relief. The pool was great but as we were swimming backwards and forwards a storm hit. We are, apparently, in the rainy season but we have yet to have had any real evidence of this – well, until today. The rain lashed down. The lightening was fearful and the thunder rolled mercilessly across the sky. I stayed in the pool and let it rain. Patti tells me you shouldn’t be in a pool in a thunderstorm – another one of those old wives’ tales that doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny. At least I was fine despite the storm. It was pretty surreal to swim in such a storm so I sat on the side and let it rain on me – after all how much wetter could I get? After a while we went in because, to be honest, the rain was coming down so hard it stung. There is one thing the rain managed to do. It emptied the streets. The only motorbikes around were a few brave souls bent double trying to get where they were going and totally resigned to be soaked. It was very odd to see.

After drying ourselves out, we walked down to the night market by the river for dinner which we had in a small roadside cafe with little plastic chairs set on the pavement. It was spicy, filling and totally unrecognisable. Whenever we go off for a dinner by ourselves I can never really tell what it is that we are eating – although I know one thing we had contained eggs. Patti and I are blessed with cast iron stomachs so we have no real fear of the various ‘meats’ and sanitary conditions that would curl the hair of the average westerner and we are happy to try anything once – this attitude has led me to spitting out a few things almost immediately, which makes the locals laugh – but then, my attitude is if you haven’t been ripped off, had a stomach bug or been laughed at by the locals then you haven’t travelled.

Anyway, we have – to date – survived our culinary experiments and despite the over abundance of coriander and greenery, it was pretty good and we returned to the hotel to pack for the journey to Hoi An early in the morning.