Hue, the old imperial city

Hue was the imperial city of Vietnam from 1802 until 1945. During that time it was home to 13 different emperors all from the Nguyen dynasty. When the last emperor abdicated in 1945, power shifted to Hanoi and Saigon. And Hue became a small provincial city again.



Hue is located on the Perfume River (which gets its name from some well-smelling plants that grow around its source in Laos). The city has nice open green spaces along both embankments, which make a nice contrast to the usually densely populated city centers in Asia. A welcome relief on our visit as the temperature and especially the humity were almost too much to bear.



The first thing we did was therefore a boat trip up the Perfume River to the Pagoda of the Heavenly Lady and its surrounding sanctuary.



A nice place outside the city, though just climbing the 20 or so stairs up from the river meant that our shirts were sweated all the way through. I don't think I have ever experienced such a level of humidity before.

Though that was probably still a few degrees cooler than what one of the sanctuary's most famous inhabitant must have felt like in 1963. Because back then one of the older monks had driven from the monastry to Saigon and immolated himself on a busy traffic crossing to get attention for the plight of Buddhists in Vietnam back then. The resulting photo made it all the way around the world:



In the direct aftermath of his action, some other buddhist monks reacted rather pragmatically - and saved his his car, which ultimately made it back to the monastry where it is on display today:



Slightly more uplifting is the other main attraction of the sanctuary - a big happy buddha:



This depiction of buddha is meant to symbolize good luck and wealth (and something that we must have already seen a thousand times in all sorts of materials while travelling around Asia). Or as Fiona - rather disrespectfully - calls it "daddy's belly"...


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Back in Hue we visited the city's main attraction - the Imperial City, which was where the emperors and their families and servants lived. The inner area of this massive complex is called the "Forbidden City" which is where just the emperors and their families lived. Not just the name, but also the whole area design with its forecourts, temples, halls etc. is rather reminiscient of the Forbidden City in Beijing.

Unfortuntaly, during the Vietnam War (or better, during the "American War" as it is called here in Vietnam) the Communist troops put up their military camp right in the middle of the Forbidden City, which therefore attracted heavy US bombardment and got pretty much all destroyed. So where the key palaces once stood, things look rather more barren these days:



We were quickly brought back to today's reality by visiting the local central market afterwards - ... count yourself lucky that this blog does not capture smells:



The following morning we visited one of the numerous emperor tombs which are outside Hue. The one we saw was Khai Dinh's tomb, who was the second last emperor (and ruled between 1916 and 1925). His son built a massive, rather over-the-top mausoleum cum temple to commemorate his father.







The whole building has Chinese, Indian, Japanese and French design elements thrown together - all on a rather too grand scale. The emperor and his son had undertaken various trips abroad, e.g. to Europe, and based on that "inspiration" they wanted to build their piece of immortality on a scale that also foreign dignitaries would be impressed by.

In order to build it, special taxes amongst the population were raised. Another factor as to why common people weren't all that upset when the royal family finally abdicated in 1945 (and emmigrated to France).

We continued our journey further South through Vietnam...