Back to Vietnam - Hue

Part 6 -- Hue (pronounced H’way)

Okay, Hue has a fabulous Citadel and great tombs; I’ll give it that; and a river with an appealing name (Perfume, which it doesn’t live up to) runs through it; and pretty parks along the banks. I’m sure it’s all lovely in spring, but right now it’s pissing rain and cold and I’m not happy.

We wander around the huge central market, which the guidebook says is one of the best in the country, but how many piles of oranges, baskets of chilies, stacks of bamboo shoots and mounds of soup greens can I look at? Can’t find any nice shops or boutiques either but lots of junk: piles of tin watches, plastic sunglasses, and household paraphernalia. Where did we go wrong?

We cross the Phu Xuan bridge, stroll through the sculpture gardens along the Perfume River, meander through the maze of ill-lit back streets, and rush back to our warm, four-star luxury hotel. Sure, our room has a huge picture window but we can’t see the view through the thick foggy grey mist.

The staff at the hotel is very kind; they send us to restaurants they’re sure we’ll love, and where I feel a bit like a sucker. Okay, the food is tasty, spring rolls impaled on toothpicks sticking out of a pineapple with a candle inside, giant carrots carved to look like pagodas and fruit like aquarium decorations. We order specialties of the house: a good fresh steamed fish with onions, salad with “figs” that bear no resemblance to any figs I ever saw, and a chopped mussel dish that has no mussels as far as I can tell.

Patricia and I prefer to eat in local dives – like the one at the corner down the street, a large open space with many tables but no walls. We sit near the open kitchen where a woman fries things in her woks and pans and doles food onto platters. The damp wind blows through the cavernous hall.

As I study the menu I notice the waitress clearing the next table. She takes the plate of leftover pickled cabbage that the diners didn’t eat and dumps its contents back into the serving bowl by the kitchen. She does the same with leftover chili sauce and salad sauce. Patricia devours the pickled cabbage, sauces, and all the rest with gusto. I order noodle soup. At least I saw it boiling.

At night, the chambermaid turns down our beds and leaves a little piece of candy with a note, “Have a nice dream.”

Hue looks not so much like a city but an ugly sprawling suburb with bad lighting, dingy streets and crumbling houses. It boasts the high school attended by Ho Chi Minh and General Giap (who defeated France in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, and is still alive at age 105).

The main attraction here is the magnificent Citadel, seat of Feudal Nguyen Emperors who reigned in South Vietnam from the early 17^th. Century until the Communists took over in 1945, and it’s inner sanctum, the forbidden palace, built in 1804. It’s an exact replica of the Chinese Forbidden City in Beijing, only constructed 200 years later. Most of it has fallen apart and been destroyed but it’s being rebuilt according to the original plans as a tourist attraction, not unlike the Venice Canals in Las Vegas.

Returning from the Citadel we board a chugging, rickety dragon boat down the dreary Perfume River, where we sit on wobbly plastic chairs, shivering, while the boatman tries to sell us picture postcards.

We hire a driver to take us to the Emperors’ tombs, scattered around the countryside outside the city. They are fabulous, fantastic works of art, landscape, and architecture along the lines of what any self-respecting King would prepare for himself so as never to be forgotten: sumptuous and costly hand-carved stone mausoleums.

Great. Only I need some sunshine to warm my old bones.