Hue - Day 3

Wednesday

Yipee we woke to no rain, grey and damp, but no rain. So today it is a visit to the Imperial City and Citadel.  Its a world heritage site on the Perfume River across the bridge from where we are staying.

It's a vast complex full of palaces, gardens and temples. I knew that much of it was crumbling, but wasn't expecting such an amazing place.   In 1945 much of it was destroyed by the French, and then the Americans came in and tried to finish the job.

Built between 1804/1833 and for the Nyguyen dynasty, his family and cronies, all which finished of course with Ho Chi Ming and communism.

We started our day by walking across the bridge and through the flower market. They are all gearing up for Tet which starts next week. There were bikes, scooters and trishaws with huge orange trees, or giant chrysanthemums on the back, or a small tree.  But then with some of the sights we've seen nothing surprises me.

I am now officially a media star. I was approached by camera crew and interviewed for Vietnamese TV. They asked where was I from, had I visited Vietnam before and was I enjoying the preparations for Tet.  I think I will get myself an agent when I get home dahlink!

The other day we saw two guys on a very small moped with two enormous double glazed windows balancing between thm.   That could have been nasty.

Any way we got through the market and I went to take a photo to find I had left my camera battery in the charger back in the room.   We walked back to the hotel, and of course Rod chuntering the whole way.  I did apologise more than once, honest.

So onto the Imperial City. It has huge walls and is partly moated and you have to go through a massive gate way through to the exterior part of the site, then through moe gateways to get to the inner imperial part.

Stone gateway and moat

The Vietnamese Government have over the last ten years been reconstructing and restoring what was left, but it will be a long job. The site is now a UNESCO site and we'll deserves it.

The first restored building was the Emperors main greeting chamber. You couldn't take pictures inside, but there was a enormous gold throne in the centre and beautiful lacquered columns lining the hall.

The Queen Mother's Pad. They had some beautifully embroidered ceremonial wear on display.

It started to rain at this point so we stopped in the Queen Mother's garden shed for a cup of ginger tea and a coffee?  Quite nice!

I hope you don't mind but I am going to ramble on a bit in pictures. Even the delapidated areas were so stunning, and in some ways it was great to see a mix of them and the restored parts.

This was an administration building.

What is left of the Emperors Palace. Not a lot but they had put flowers everywhere.

The gateways where decorated with ceramics which were stunning and I think where temples had been totally destroyed the have used the ceramic shards instead.

I could on forever but you are probably falling a sleep now. Last picture of a bullet ridden temple. Brings the history back into context.

In town we had seen a sign for live music in a bar, so after dinner we went along and sat on an open terrace on the first floor.  Unfortunately music was a broad description of the three guys sort of playing guitars.  It was awful, we sat there drinking our beer and wondering how long it would take us to down it and get out. You know when bad singing just makes you shutter. Ah bless,  at least they didn't drag me up there, I couldnt have done any better.