Hue 2 - The Empire Strikes Back!

Once the initial shock of having taken the wrong train dissipated, we resigned ourselves to a second wet stay in Hue. As we walked into the same hotel we had stayed in previously, we were greeted by familiar faces, all having the same inquisitive look that said “How come you guys are back?”. After explaining what had happened, we became the talk among the staff, who giggled every time we bumped into them! “Yeah, yeah, I’d like to see you navigate the London Underground and see if you don’t take the wrong train” I thought to myself, only to realise that their English was far superior to my Vietnamese and that they’d be able to ask for help, unlike us two nit wits! To some extent it became a blessing in disguise as we hadn’t visited the Forbidden Purple Citadel, the seat of Vietnam’s 19th and early 20th century’s empire, in the first instance. After a well deserved nap and freshen up, we walked over Phu Xuan Bridge and entered the citadel through the Ngan Gate. This apparently used to be a sumptuous entrance, but the Viet Cong had turned into a reinforced bunker to ward off the Yanks. The Forbidden Citadel housed all of Vietnam’s Emperors and must have been an incredible sight in its early days. Alas, the heinous wars fought during the 20th Century only managed to disfigure what was once a beautiful piece of Vietnamese architecture. The first half of the citadel has been restored and refurbished, the bullet ridden walls plastered and the insides of the Palace has been brought back to it’s former glory. Continue behind the Palace and you’ll bump into workmen, none of them wearing safety clothing, busy hammering, soldering, sawing and so on in order to refurbish some of the satellite buildings. But the rear entrance of the Citadel and its surroundings still bear the very deep wounds of the American War. Bullet and shell holes are ever so omnipresent, building rabble and bomb craters constantly reminded us that a bitter siege took place here only 40 years ago… It was nice to see though that the authorities were doing what they could to slowly return the Citadel to its former beauty. We also strolled along what was known as the European City under the French Rule. As expected, colonial style buildings were everywhere, with the odd Communist concrete sterile looking administrative building spoiling the Boulevard. But I don’t blame the Vietnamese for trying to forget the occupation of their country by a far western country. It is said that the French ruled harshly and violently repressed any form of demonstration or revolt. But like towards the Americans now, the locals welcome French and others alike without expressing the slightest bitterness. After our bad experience with trains, we decided to give up on going to Nha Trang and its supposedly beautiful beaches and opted for the faster and hopefully safer flight from Hue to Ho Chi Minh City, better known to us and its inhabitants as Saigon. I have seen my fair share of laughable practices in airports around Europe. One of my pet hates is when people stand on conveyor belts, meant to speed up transit times between terminals, and just stop there, not walking along, preventing those in a hurry from getting to the departure gate in a timely fashion. Well in Hue’s airport we witnessed the most ridiculous transit journey ever. Hue’s airport is a tiny place, consisting of an ugly grey rectangular building and a very dull looking runway, though I guess these aren’t designed to look pretty and exciting in the first place… Anyway, we were in the departure lounge waiting for our flight when we heard the announcement for the Saigon bound plane in excellent English, which reassured us greatly as the last thing we needed was to take the wrong plane! We headed to our “gate” (there’s only one in the airport) and walking down some stairs we could see our Vietnam Airlines Airbus 320 plane, sitting on the tarmac only 15 metres or so away from the main building. But instead of walking across the tarmac, the airport staff got us to hop onto a bus! All that for the lengthy journey of 20 seconds. And because there were so many passengers waiting and that the bus could only carry 30 to 40 passengers, the whole process to transfer from gate to plane took 40 minutes, where it would have taken 5 had we walked across to the plane. But I wasn’t going to argue with airport staff, as close by soldiers with AK-47 machine guns were keeping a close eye ensuring that all us behaved!

JM