In one of those "I can laugh about it now" stories I took a taxi from Hoi An to Danang and then the three-hour train ride to Hue because I heard the route traces the coastline and the views are spectacular. Unless, of course, you're sitting on the aisle seat, facing backwards, next to a girl who is apparently the only one on the train not interested in the scenery.
People on the other side of the aisle were standing on their seats trying to see the view down the precipitous hillsides to the ocean crashing on the rocks below. I saw almost nothing, because the girl next to me closed the curtain as soon as we left the station and promptly fell asleep against the window.
Hue is perhaps best known to Americans, if at all, as the sight of a furious battle that began as part of the Tet Offensive in 1968. The city was important for geographical and historical reasons. Hue is just south of the DMZ, the line that split Vietnam into the US-allied south and Communist north. It also had symbolic importance as the spiritual center of Vietnam since it was the imperial capital of the Nguyen Dynasty from 1802 to 1945.
Because of its importance it suffered mightily during the wars with the French and US; because of its location near the coast it has taken a beating from Mother Nature's occasional typhoon; and because of its imperial past the Communist government essentially left its historical monuments to rot when the country was reunified in the wake of the withdrawal of American forces.
Recently, though, acceptance of the city's historical importance (and the tourist dollars at stake) has led to something of an official change of heart and restoration of the city's monuments.
The most notable of which is the Citadel, the walled inner city that was home to the royal family, which I'll cover in a separate post.
I did a walking tour through the city, which took me past the Military Museum, where US weapons captured during the war are displayed.
There is an understandable bias to the signs. This one says:
M48 TANK WITH ARTILLERY OF THE US EQUIPPED TO PUPPET SOLDIERS FOR RAIDING AND KILLING THE PEOPLE. IN THE SPRING 1975 CAMPAIGN, CAPTURED BY THE LIBERATION ARMY AT PHU BAI ON 25 MARCH 1975.
After passing the Military Museum you come to the Ngo Mon Gate to the Imperial City, from which there's a nice view of what is probably the city's most iconic sight, the Flag Tower. This is part of the Citadel wall and sits right on Song Huong, the impossibly poetically named Perfume River.
Because of its position on the river the flag is visible from all over the city.
After visiting the Imperial City I walked around the footpath that follows the moat around it...
... and down to a canal to see a sampan village. Sampans are traditional Vietnamese house boats. A sampan village then is a neighborhood where everyone lives on these boats.
As I walked down the canal I passed this striking sight, which reminded me of sea urchins I've seen while scuba diving.
This is another thing Hue is famous for: incense. The sticks are drying in the sun just above the bank of the canal. Everywhere in the city I saw these juxtapositions of old and new, traditional and modern. Here is a garden on one side of the canal. with a man paddling a boat in the canal, and motorbikes whizzing by on the opposite side.
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