Hue - Royals, Riches and...Rengiss?

Our first contact with Hue wasn't a great success. Tired and sweaty from the train we stumbled out on to the busy streets. I got us lost, we got hassled by touts, Theo almost threw up and there wasn't an empty taxi in sight.
Things picked up later after we had recovered and in the evening we set out to enjoy the city. Hue used to be the old capital of Vietnam and the imperial citadel dominates the north bank of the river while the other holds a rather ordinary looking city, much like Phitsanulok. There are straight, ordered streets and a bridge that lights up in the dark. All along the river front there are dragon boats, their drivers yelling at you to take a ride for a dollar. The night market by the river had clothes and trinkets of every variety and seemed popular with the locals. Under the bridge those without market spots had spread out their wares on plastic sheets and deftly scooped it all up and ran when the police showed up.

The Perfume river at night - Hue

China Through Mauve-Tinted Glasses

The Imperial Citadel

To see the various sights in and around Hue we decided to embark on another tour so our first morning in town saws us trundling along in a bright pink tour bus with rude French and irritating Australians. Our first stop was of course the citadel and we moved rather too quickly through the forbidden purple city. There's not much left of the city now, having been destroyed by war and weather, but it is still easy to imagine how impressive it must have been its day. The gate remains intact and there are signs of where there were palaces and mansions for the king, the queen, the king's mother and grandmother, princes and princess, the many mandarins (advisers) and literally hundreds of concubines. The city steps back over and over again through arches and courtyards and pillared rooms.
Close to the citadel a small garden house was built as one of the many homes for the king's advisers. It was a pretty, simple wooden home complete with Feng Shui lily pond. Our guide showed us the inside, furnished with wooden tables and chairs and a tall shrine. The China urn-like thing on top, he said, was for burning fake money for use by friends and family in hell.

An incense burner in the pagoda

We moved on and visited an ornate pagoda built atop a hill and over-looking the Perfume River. The tower at the centre had the traditional seven layers and was surrounded by small rooms holding sacred stones and another of those giant turtles.
In the afternoon we headed out of town to the tombs. Many ancient kings are buried around Hue and their tombs are vast and majestic sights. The first was a series of hills and oriental style buildings. As you walk down through the complex you go up and down steps, through courtyards and symmetrical sets of doorways to a long garden. You can then do the long walk back beside mirror image lakes. This is a good site for a tomb, according to the guide, it's clean of other dead and has excellent Feng Shui. The last tomb was a vast complex of semi-ruined tombs and lily ponds. There was a tomb for the King, a shrine for his mother and other random dilapidated shrines.

Rengiss

Incense on sale

We stopped at a massive shop and incense and conical hat making "village", essentially more shops, and Theo and I stood around while the wealthy middle-aged tourists bought loads of junk. To get back to Hue we caught a dragon boat down stream. The dragon boats are odd things, essentially longboats joined together to make one enormous lumbering vessel that drifts slightly crookedly down river. The two longboats underneath are topped with impressive dragon heads, hence the name, and they try to sell you all manner of tat while you're aboard. As we sat our guide asked where we were from. On hearing I was from England he got very excited. "Oh yes, England! Where in England? Southampton?" I was taken aback, how did he guess? When Theo then said he was from Wales the guide looked puzzled, before exclaiming, "Ah yes! Rengiss!" Theo and I looked at each other, "Rengiss?" "Yes, Rengiss, you know Rengiss, Manchester!" Light dawned in Theo's eyes, "Ohhh, you mean Ryan Giggs?" "Yes Rengiss."


Fooooooood

The food in Hue was a bit of a mixed bag, we had some great stuff at a restaurant called Hot Tuna and a truly awful meal at a small vegetarian restaurant. My veggie burger came just as slices of meat flavoured tofu, rather than the usual bean burger style thing, no bun, no salad, nothing. Our best find while we were there was a small restaurant where we manged to get a bottle of Dalat (Vietnamese) wine for under three pounds. Then before we knew it we were off again, back on the good old Vietnamese railway heading for bustling Da Nang. Barely pausing for breath we were crashing through the varied sights of Vietnam.