Hooray for Hue

Hue (who-aye) was the imperial capital of Vietnam a couple of centuries back and is famous for it's architecture, monuments and war history.

Hue is easy to get a grip on. The main landmark is the Perfume River (misleading name), with the old city on the north side and the newer city, including most hotels and restaurants, on the south side.

We spent less than 24 hours in the city but they were productive albeit wet hours.

To get the ball rolling we hired bicycles and donned our rubbish bag raincoats and set out to see the Forbidden Purple City. Surrounded by a wall about 2 km's by 2 km's and then by a moat. The forbidden city was where only the concubines, emperors, and those close enough to them were granted access, the punishment for trespassing being death. We were quick to deduce that privacy was important to the emperors and that they didn't like unexpected visitors dropping by unannounced.

Opposite the main entrance to the forbidden city is a large citadel with the biggest flag we've ever seen - the photo below doesn't do it justice.

The photo below is inside the main gate approaching the palace.

The perimeter and gates of the forbidden city are pretty impressive but once inside things aren't as amazing as the name leads you to believe. This is largely thanks to the US who flattened the place during the war.

To get to the palace you cross a causeway surrounded by pond water. There are hundreds of carp in the water and if you feed them (or pretend to as we did) a feeding frenzy occurs.

Inside there are heaps of random little oddities like a giant phoenix, dragon and buckets.

Military buffs would have a field day in Hue as the city was very close to the border between North and South Vietnam (it played host to the battle of Hue) and tours etc are available for the DMZ or demilitarized zone. Because time was at a premium we had to give this a miss but riding around there was an abundance of captured tanks and artillery on display.

Hue is also famous for the emperors tombs which are located just out of the city. Once again we didn't have time to see these - maybe next time.

Random Fact: In Vietnam one road rule is strictly enforced (only the one) and that's drivers and passengers of moto's must wear helmets. The law came into force about 10 months ago and we can only imagine the record profits that helmet manufacturers must be enjoying as 80 million people buy helmets.

Highlights

- Traditional Vietnamese performance. Featuring singing, dancing, instrumentals and dancing dragons it was the most fun we've had sitting down for some time.

Lessons Learned
- You need more than 24 hours to check out everything Hue has to offer. If you're in a hurry two days would probably be enough.

- If it's cold and you don't have much warm clothing then rubbish bag raincoats are surprisingly warm.