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Hue — Vietnam’s ancient capital city rises above the ashes of war

The couple with whom we shared our four-bunk compartment were prone to startling bursts of snoring that drowned out even the clatter of the rails. I finally gave up trying to sleep and rolled out of bed in search of a morning coffee.
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Ngo Mon Gate into the imperial Enclosure

The couple with whom we shared our four-bunk compartment were prone to startling bursts of snoring that drowned out even the clatter of the rails. I finally gave up trying to sleep and rolled out of bed in search of a morning coffee.

It’s a twelve-hour trip on the overnight train from Hanoi to Hue and we still had several hours to go when I settled down in the dining car with my morning tea (sorry, no coffee). The train skirted tiny villages and sped past fields still flooded by the recent monsoon rains. The first farm workers and their water buffalo were heading for the fields and I was just finishing my bowl of noodles when we rattled across the Ben Hai River bridge.

There is nothing remarkable about the Ben Hai River except that it happens to coincide almost exactly with the 17 th parallel. And in 1954, when Vietnam was partitioned along the 17 th parallel, the Ben Hai River became the de facto boundary between North and South Vietnam.

Although the partitioning of Vietnam, as negotiated at the Geneva Conference, was supposed to be temporary, the country remained divided for the next 21 years. During that time the infamous Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) along the Ben Hai River became the most heavily militarized strip of turf in the world. Even now, more than thirty years after the war, it continues to take its toll. Since 1975 an estimated 5,000 people have been killed or injured by forgotten mines and unexploded ordnance in the DMZ.

We rolled into Hue and were introduced to Long, an enthusiastic local guide whose passion for Vietnamese history vastly exceeded his command of the English language. For the next two days he took us on a whirlwind tour of his city but I have only the vaguest idea of what he told us. My first impression was how calm and quiet it was. Compared to the frantic rush and crush of traffic in Hanoi, the streets of Hue seemed practically empty and the pace relaxed. We checked in to the Huong Giang Hotel and went for lunch on its bright dining balcony overlooking the Perfume River. Sampans and dragon boats cruise leisurely along the shore past brightly painted low-rise buildings in a park-like setting of trees and feathery clumps of bamboo. It’s hard to imagine that this serene place was the site of some of the most brutal fighting of the U.S.-Vietnam war and that the city of Hue was virtually annihilated in the process.

At the beginning of the 1968 Tet Offensive Hue was the only city in South Vietnam held by Communist forces and when the South Vietnamese army was unable to dislodge them US firepower was called in. For the next three and a half weeks, while the flag of North Vietnam’s National Liberation Front flew defiantly from the Citadel Tower, whole neighborhoods, along with most of the ancient temples and palaces of the Citadel itself, were leveled by US bombs and Viet Cong rockets. And it was not just the architecture that suffered – an estimated 10,000 people died in the battle for Hue. By the end of the war in 1975 the devastation of Hue was so overwhelming that the remains of its historic sites were simply abandoned. Years later it was tourism that ultimately led to their restoration.

By the time we finished lunch, Long had assembled a fleet of cyclos for our tour of the Citadel and as my driver pedaled slowly over the Phu Xuan Bridge across the Perfume River I saw no sign of war damage to the outer walls. In 1990 the local government finally recognized the tourist potential of Vietnam’s ancient capital. Three years later it was designated a World Heritage Site and since then many of its ancient buildings, walls, and gardens have been fully restored.

From 1802, when a Ngyen Lord proclaimed himself emperor Gai Long, until 1945, Vietnam was ruled by the feudal Ngyen Dynasty and Hue was its capital city. The Citadel, which Gai Long began in 1804 is protected from the outside world by a zig-zag moat and a thick 10-km long wall. With an area of almost five square kilometres the city within the Citadel walls is more than a relic of history – it’s also home to a large part of Hue’s present population.

We crossed the moat, left the cyclos at the Flag Tower, and walked through the Ngan Gate, one of ten fortified passageways through the ramparts. The brass muzzles of Gai Long’s nine holy cannons still provide symbolic protection and, lest anyone forget, the flag of a unified Vietnam, a yellow star on a field of red, now flies from the 37-metre high mast atop the Flag Tower. Facing the flag tower, the massive three-story wood and stone Ngo Mon Gate leads into the Imperial Enclosure.

Surrounded by 6-m high walls this citadel-within-a-citadel houses the emperor’s residence, his reading room, several ornate palaces, and yet another walled citadel-within-a-citadel called the Forbidden Purple City. When the Ngyen Lords were in residence the Purple City was forbidden to everyone except the Emperor himself, his concubines, and a select group of eunuch servants. Not much remains of the original Purple City but, like other bombed-out sections of the Imperial Enclosure, the war damage is now hidden by foliage and reconstruction is forging ahead.

The ornate mausoleums where the Ngyen Lords are buried are almost as elegant as the palaces where they lived, and because most of them are far from the city they escaped the ravages of war. We began our tour of the Royal Tombs aboard one of the garish two-headed dragon boats that ply the Perfume River with hoards of other sightseeing tourists. At Thien Mu Pagoda, an hour’s cruise south of Hue, we switched to motorbikes and spent the rest of the day on a wild ride through the countryside. After visiting the Pagoda and several tombs we also rode along narrow country laneways through tiny villages where kids waved as we passed, and followed canals where fishermen with huge dip-nets were bringing in fresh-water shrimp.

The seven-story Thien Mu Pagoda, where we left the Perfume River tour, is featured on almost every tourist brochure of Hue. It has also been a flashpoint for religious and political protest, including at least one self-immolation. In fact the Austin car that Quang Doc drove to Saigon before setting himself alight in 1963 is still parked behind the tower.

We went on to the tombs of Minh Mang, Khai Dinh, and Tu Doc and at each stop I strained to understand what Long, our very knowledgeable guide was saying. Many of the opulent mausoleums and their elegant gardens were built by forced labour and in order to keep the exact site of burials a secret those who prepared it were silenced by beheading. The Ngyen Lords were a rough bunch but, according to Long, they also had a

gentle side. While Long struggled with the language I struggled to comprehend the numbers. The many wives of Minh Mang gave him 140 kids while poor Tu Doc, despite his best efforts and the cooperation of several hundred wives and concubines, died (probably from exhaustion) without leaving an heir. “Could the leftover wives remarry?” I asked Long. “Many of them could,” he replied, “with more than five hundred of them many were still virgins when the Emperor died.” Seems even the most powerful Emperors have their limitations.

With a population of less than half a million Hue is little more than a town by Asian standards but it has played a disproportionately large role in the history of Vietnam. And history has not been kind to Hue. It was looted and burned by the French in 1885 and bombed into oblivion by the U.S. in1968. But Hue continues to bounce back and today, as one of the countries fastest growing centers of culture and art, it should not be missed by anyone visiting Vietnam.