Hue

At the Imperial Palace and the Forbidden City

The city of Hue is in a spectacularly beautiful natural setting with some great examples of French Colonial architecture and a UNESCO National Heritage Site of the old Imperial City from the days of the emperors.   It was the capital of Vietnam from 1802 until 1945.  Unfortunately, much of it is overlaid with your basic third world patina of stalls and tiny shops.  These can be fun but don’t make for much of an impressive sight. It’s a small city, population under 500,000.  It is, however, a provincial city despite having been the capital, and the airport is a little primitive.  It’s tiny, one gate, no jet ways, and security is only open right before a flight.  Since we just do carry on baggage this means shleping up and down a lot of steps to get to the plane.

We visited the Imperial City and Forbidden City, which does not begin to compare with the Forbidden City in Beijing.   It did cover a huge area at one time and if you use your imagination you can see that it once was very impressive.  Much of it has been destroyed.  The government is trying to restore it but it's a very expensive proposition. And you can also see how Ho Chi Minh and his forces were able to overthrow the emperor.  Talk about income disparity.  The imperial palaces had gold inlaid columns, intricate paneling and carvings.  The emperor and his court were clothed in the finest embroidered silks, some of which are one display.  Meanwhile, except for an elite group, most of the rest of the country lived in poverty.

Hue, as some of you may remember is just on the border of what was then North Vietnam and South Vietnam and there was a huge battle here in 1968 commemorated in the movie “Full Metal Jacket” directed by Stanley Kubrick.  There was pretty extensive damage to the city during the war.

We’re staying at a hotel overlooking the Perfume River.  Doesn’t that sound wonderful? It actually is quite beautiful and we have a little balcony where we can watch the junks traveling up and down the river.  Palm trees all around.  Pretty idyllic!