John and The Imperial City

Day 10: Cultural Sights around Hue

After waking up early and moving hotels, we visited the imperial city and citadel. Hue was the capital of Vietnam until 1945 when Emperor Ba Dai abdicated his thrown in 1945. However, before that, Hue became a famous center of arts, scholarship and Buddhist learning. The imperial city is really based on the Forbidden City in Bejing. It is massive and ornate. It was here that the emperor actually abdicated his thrown. We spent the morning exploring the imperial city and then headed on a boat trip to explore sites off of the perfume river.

The boat trip lasted about five hours and we spent most of that time just sitting on the boat going from site to site. Some highlights were watching the many, many boats that had families digging the sand up from the bottom of the river and piling it into their boat. They were strung all along the river. We also saw lots of other families using the river for fishing or other activities and you could tell that the boats were in fact their homes. At the end of the day, kids were everywhere in the water playing and splashing around. We saw Thien Mu Pagoda, Hon Chen Temple and Minh Mang’s Mausoleum. Two specific highlights: Thien Mu Pagoda was very beautiful and had monks living, working and training there. It also has a lot of historical significance. During the 30s and 40s it was renowned as the center of Buddhist opposition to colonialism. Its most famous pop-history artifact is the display of a powder blue Austin car. It was driven by the Venerable Thich Quang Duc, who drove the car from Hue to Saigon and pulled over at the intersection of Cach Mang Thang Tam and Nguyen Dinh Chieu. There, he sat down in the lotus position and meditated as a few monks doused him in petrol, and then set him on fire. He burned himself to death in protest of the repression of Buddhists by President Diem. As the flames engulfed him, the western press corp cameras rolled and the next morning it was on televisions and news papers across the western world (and was alos the cover of the first Rage Against the Machine album). The famous picture was also on display with the car.

Our final stop was the mausoleum. The most striking fact was that it took the king 14 years to find the right spot for the mausoleum. It was a very beautiful and serene environment, full of symbolism. We enjoyed drinks outside of our hotel on the banks of the perfume river as we watched the sun set over the mountains. For dinner we headed to Little Italy and had some fantastic pizza and so-so pasta. The pizza was really amazing.