Adventures in Asia: Hue, Vietnam

Early this morning we docked at a place called Chan May, which I had assumed would be a major port of central Vietnam.  In fact, the major port is not too far away, but it is at Da Nang, which apparently Sapphire Princess is too large to get into.  So instead she docks in what seems to be the middle of nowhere.

Chan May is roughly equidistant from Da Nang and Hue, the old imperial capital of Vietnam, and also within visiting distance of Hoi An.

As with our prior stops, the port's location would not allow us to tour on our own, so we had chosen an excursion to Hue.  We were off the ship before 7:30, and it was already hot and humid.  The scenery reminded us of Honduras's Caribbean island of Roatan.

From Chan May to Hue is just over an hour and, much like between Phu My and HCMC, the route passes through both rural and urban/suburban settings.  We were able to stop at one point and take pictures of one especially scenic spot that included rice paddies being worked by farmers and little fishing boats in the sea just beyond. 

Despite its historical significance, Hue is a much smaller city than HCMC at about 500,000.  Prior to the Vietnam War it was just south of the demilitarized zone, and then was captured by the Viet Cong during the Tet Offensive.  Our guide's uncle and aunt were killed in a massacre that followed the Tet Offensive.  He is also a descendant of the dynasty that ruled Vietnam from Hue, the Nguyens.  While there are numerous spots of historical, political, and religious significance in Hue (it remains a popular destination for domestic religious tourists, and is known as the capital of Buddhism in Vietnam [surprisingly to me, Buddhism is only practiced by about a quarter of Vietnamese, with traditional (i.e., Confucianism/ancestry worship) the dominant religion]), to me it was the rural scenes, and especially the water buffalo roaming the Perfume River's bank that I found especially compelling.

Our tour began at what the itinerary described as a "hat factory," where the iconic Vietnamese conical hats are manufactured.  I am not clear if the place we went is the place the itinerary had in mind, but if so it was poorly described.  Where we went was a local family's house/shop, which sold artwork and other souvenirs, incense, and hats.  I would not describe it as a factory, because the emphasis was clearly on sales and not factoring.  Anyway, I did not mind, because the other tourists wanted to shop, and I was more interested in the hats and incense. 

The lady making the hats had the dried leaves in front of her, and the guide squatted with me and showed me how the hat is made of two layers of leaves weaved through a bamboo frame, with a layer of paper in between.  In this case, an old book and newspaper provided the paper.  It was very interesting.  Also, shockingly tedious work for something they were turning around and trying to sell for $5 or less.

From the hats the lady went to a station to make the incense sticks.  The station included a desktop slanted towards her, and various spots above for her supplies.  She took a bunch of brightly painted sticks in her hand and applied a mixture of water, glue, sawdust, and cinnamon (in this case, but others had lemongrass and so on).  She used a flat board to roll the stick until a thin layer of the mixture surrounded it, and then released it to roll into a container on her lap.  She was certainly efficient, but again I was struck with how labour intensive the work was given how cheaply the bags of the incense sticks were selling for.  

Bunches of the incense sticks were drying in the sun, and the guide told me it takes two days for them to dry, before they are packaged.  The shop also displayed the brightly painted sticks before the incense is applied in beautifully arranged bunches on racks beside the road, making not only a gorgeous display, but also providing, I suppose, a form of advertising.

From the little shop we drove a few minutes down the road to the Tu Duc Tomb, which is one of many imperial tombs surrounding Hue.  The Tu Doc Tomb site is really a compound with many buildings and more than one tomb, including for the emperor's wife and adopted son.  Emperor Tu Doc himself, ironically, is apparently buried in a secret location outside the compound (although he still has a tomb dedicated to him within the compound).  Tu Doc was the longest serving Nguyen emperor, but also, I gather, the most depressed and troubled one.  He seems to have had more interest in preparing for the afterlife than in governing his kingdom, and he spent a lot of effort designing and building this compound.  

The crickets were making an incredible amount of noise just outside of Tu Doc's tomb and I took this short video to get a sample of it:

In addition to the burial sites, there was also a mansion where he lived and from whence he governed during the final 16 years of his reign.  Later the mansion became a temple, and even today its used as such.

Offerings of money and incense were evident at the tombs and in this temple.

The compound's buildings and tombs actually took up only a small portion of the compound, and the rest is nicely treed and there is a large pond and so on--its very beautiful and could be quite peaceful without all the tourists.  

Even with bus after bus of cruise ship passengers at the site, Andrea and I were alone at the wife's tomb and I was entirely alone at the son's.  As with so much of this trip, the heat and sun made it so enjoying the place was not as easy as it might otherwise have been, even though we were there between 9:00 and 10:00.  Nonetheless, we were the last couple back onto the bus.

The next stop was the Thien Mu Pagoda, a 400+ year Buddhist site, this time in Hue itself.

By now the sun was really intense, so the guide shortened our visit to about half an hour, which was really plenty.  Interestingly, the Buddhism reflected here was far different than that in other places in southeast Asia.  For example, Feng Shui plays a much more important role in Vietnam, and at this pagoda there are obvious elements of Confucianism and Taoism in addition to Buddhism.  

The Thien Mu Pagoda is above the Perfume River, which splits Hue in two.

After Thien Mu Pagoda we crossed the river to eat lunch at a 100+ year old, gorgeously renovated hotel, and it was an incredibly delicious buffet with lots of interesting Vietnamese dishes.

From lunch we went over to Hue's biggest attraction for international tourists, the Imperial Citadel.  This is where most of the Nguyen emperors ruled from, Tu Doc being the exception (he ruled from his tomb compound).

The citadel has three walls guarding, respectively, the ancient city, the government area, and the "Forbidden City," or royal family's palaces, etc.  The site is pretty well restored in spots, and in others is pretty much still in ruins.

We had a very quick tour, about an hour, of the site, but given the heat I don't think any of us wanted to take longer.  As it was we more or less just walked quickly through the highlights.

Our guide at this point was very stressed to ensure everyone stuck together, so that also compromised the extent to which we could tour the citadel, but anyway I had no complaints about what we got to see, and again it was damned hot.

From the citadel we re-boarded the bus for our drive back to the ship.  It began to rain quite hard as we drove, so we were lucky to be on the bus.

And so ended our visit to Hue, which was also our final stop in Vietnam.  Some Princess cruises stop up the coast again at Hanoi, and maybe one other port in Vietnam as well, and somewhat to my surprise, I found myself wishing our cruise was doing this too.  Vietnam is the only country our cruise stops in twice (unless you count Hong Kong and Shanghai), but I would have been okay if we had three or four Vietnamese ports of call.