Our first day in Hue is a recovery day.
I don’t know what it is but after a night bus, Eric and I always need a day to recuperate, so we spend our first day in Hue doing a lot of nothing… reading, writing, napping, etc.
But the next two days are filled with good old fashioned sightseeing – visiting the Citadel and the Royal Tombs of the Nguyen Dynasty.
From 1802 to 1945, under the 13 emperors of the Nguyen Dynasty, Hue was the political capital of Vietnam. The tombs of these emperors, along with the Citadel now comprise a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The Citadel itself is located along Song Huong – the “Perfume River” – within the city of Hue, so we spend Day 137 wandering around it.
Most of the Citadel is still in use – it’s a community surrounded by a moat and a large, brick wall – but the “Imperial Enclosure”, where the emperor’s carried out their official functions, has been closed off and is in the process of being restored. You can still walk around it and we enjoy a nice afternoon checking out the architecture. We also enjoy not having the constant sound of traffic in our ears.
For dinner, we opt for a night in – we grab a couple of take-away Banh Mi sandwiches and watch “Stranger Than Fiction” in our hotel room… the accommodation in Vietnam has been the best we’ve had so far because most rooms come with a TV and StarChoice Movies!!!
Whereas the Citadel was very convenient for us to get to, the Royal Tombs are spread out between 7-16 kms outside of the city centre… it’s either spend a lot of money and hire a taxi for the day or for less than half the cost of the taxi, we can take an organized tour and go to 3 of the tombs, plus a number of other spots and get a free lunch.
So on Day 138, we take the boat tour to check out the Royal Tombs.
Usually the “other spots” on a tour are places the tour company gets paid to bring tourists to – a rice whisky “distillery”, an incense maker, a fabric maker, etc. It gets a little annoying because these places are never included in the price and more often than not, they suck.
But as long as you know what you’re getting into, it’s an affordable way to work the system – take the transport to where you want to actually go and then skip the places in between.
However, on this boat trip one of the “additional spots” is actually a nice surprise for us. The tour company drops us off at Thien Mu Pagoda. The pagoda itself is quite nice and we enjoy a quiet stroll around the grounds.
But what really interests us is that it was also the home of Thich Quang Duc. Thich Quang Duc was the monk who publicly burned himself to death in 1963 to protest the policies of former Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem. The car he drove to the event in is on display and Eric is fascinated by it because although the picture taken of the act is quite famous on its own, it was also used on the cover of Rage Against the Machine’s debut, self-titled album.
After our free lunch of rice, noodles and fried tofu – yeah, we weren’t expecting anything spectacular – we eventually get to the Royal Tombs and have a great afternoon checking them out.
When we arrive back into town, we immediately go out in search of some real food and succeed brilliantly. We find a nice, quiet café and order up an assortment of Hue specialties, including:
Banh Beo – rice dumpling wrappers topped with shrimp, fried shallots, egg yolk and green onions
Banh Khoai – a Vietnamese pancake stuffed with meat and green onions
Banh Nam – glutinous rice and meat steamed in a banana leaf
Cha Ca That Lak Kho To – fish balls caramelized in a clay pot
Nem Mia Lui – minced pork grilled around sugarcane skewers
All of them are delicious but I’d say our favourite has to be the Banh Beo.
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