Off to Hue

After dragging our children out of bed at 5:30 am (no easy feat, but once up, they were total troopers) on March 4th -- Bay's birthday -- we managed to get ourselves ready for our 6am taxi to the Hanoi airport. It was pouring rain outside, and cold, so the prospect of heading south to warmer weather was sure feeling appealing as our taxi driver honked his way through traffic all the way to the airport.

After an absolutely uneventful and quick flight, we stepped off the plane into a very comfortable and humid warmth -- a warmth that has come to feel usual for us since our stint in Thailand. Aaah, off came most of the layers, except for our newly acquired travel armour needed for negotiating with the waiting taxi drivers outside the airport, all ready to pounce, equally armed with ridiculous fares. Lots of haggling later, we made it to the train station via taxi. Just the day before our arrival to Da Nang, we had decided that it would be better to check out Hue at the beginning of our time south instead of just heading to Hoi An -- we didn't think we'd have time otherwise, and we really want to see as much as we can while we are here.

Luckily the next 'express' train to Hue was only a few hours away and it gave us time to go grab a bite to eat since we hadn't had time to eat anything of any substance yet. The eatery we chose was like a big open warehouse room with plastic tables and chairs all set up. We noticed the locals were ordering from large menus, but when we sat down, we were handed a small tidy menu with limited options written in Vietnamese and English with what seemed like quite elevated prices -- oh well, we decided to order a few things anyway since we were all starving. We thought that we would also try to sneak a peak at one of the larger menus -- we were certain that we were give the foreigner price menu. When I saw a menu alone on a table I quickly skirted over and had a look -- of course it was ALL in Vietnamese, but prices certainly looked a lot less -- I only really managed to look at one page because the waitress rushed over and removed the menu from my hands! I think that says everything! Once we were back at the train station and had a chance to look at our train tickets, we saw that the section under "Category" said, "Foreigner" so we guessed that we had probably also paid a different price for them as well -- as we said in an earlier post, we are just big dollar signs here and at times it can get to us, and other times we just go along with it, smile, and say, "Oh well."

For comfort we got First Class seats (which means soft seats and air conditioning), but you would never guess they were First Class when we looked at them with Canadian eyes. Kai's jaw nearly dropped to the floor when he asked if these were really First Class seats and the answer was, "Yes!" The seats were shabby and torn, the windows were dirty and the bathrooms were an adventure in themselves -- all adding to Kai & Pippin's education here! That said, I thought it was all pretty comfortable.

Here is Ronato and Kai modeling the often-consulted Lonely Planet, while sitting in their First Class seats.
The train trip to Hue was absolutely beautiful -- the track tightly hugs the side of a mountain leading right down into the South China Sea, going through tunnel after tunnel where the mountain is too steep to go around. Looking out of the train at the steep terrain, and at the lush and often jungly foliage, definitely made Ronato and I think about Vietnam's past and all of the events that have transpired here. In a weird way, we have come to realize that in some ways our personal paths are inextricably linked to this place. Were it not for the Vietnam war and the horrible politics surrounding it in the United States, maybe my parents would not have moved to Canada. It makes it meaningful in a new way to be here, and to see what this place is about, to get a deeper sense of the history here and to see where it is now. It is hard not to think about the past here and to not be affected by it at some level.




Riding the train was another way for us to experience Vietnam and it's people -- aside from another couple, we were the only foreigners in our part of the train. Right across the aisle from us were two elegant older women, they looked like sisters, and they kept looking at Kai and Pippin and smiling and nodding. Then at some point in the trip, the elderly woman above came and started talking to us in Vietnamese with a wonderful big smile on her face. We guessed she was asking their names and their ages so we tried to tell her (our Vietnamese is absolutely hopeless -- we have barely mastered "thank you," it is so foreign to our tongues!) and there was lots of smiling and nodding. When we got off the train at Hue, they gave us big smiles and firm, friendly handshakes -- it was the beginning of our welcome to Hue, which we have since discovered is an extremely friendly place.








A view of rice paddies from the train.






This picture shows the view from the balcony of our hotel room in Hue. Our room was very nice -- two double beds (not what we are used to usually,) it was immaculate, there was a movie channel and we were able to have hot showers! Pretty nice for $25US/night, and that included a good breakfast!

The back view out of our room -- in the foreground is a school. Every time we looked out at the school, kids were running around the courtyard, along the outside halls/passageways, and in and out of the classrooms -- maybe they have staggered breaks or maybe it is just wild in the schools here?! Early in the morning, something like 6:45 am, songs started playing (kind of sounds like Vietnamese children's songs, and luckily the female voice is quite beautiful) we thought it was to start calling the kids to school, we were not sure. A little early for a wake up call, but it was all part of the experience.

For our only full day in Hue, we decided to go ahead and hire two cyclo drivers for a tour around the old part of the town. Along the way, they showed us one of the canals where people live on their boats -- here you can see the larger "dragon boats" (what they call them) that are used for touring people around the rivers and canals to see the various temples and other sights, and the smaller boats are where whole families live -- families with 5 - 9 people live on these small little boats and their boats are their livelihoods, too. Most families head out early, at about 3am, to go fishing so that they can then come back to sell their catch to the various vendors in the market before it opens.


Our two cyclo drivers appeared to be a little older, one of them was 74 years old (and he liked to let this be known) and told us he had served in the last two wars. This fellow had a lot to say about the "American bombs" (I put this in quotes because that is what he called them) and the damage that they caused to Hue, especially to the old Citadel area. You can see the front entrance to the Imperial City part of the Citadel, above. On the tour, our drivers slowly circled around the old walled city -- allowing us to see the parts that had been so badly damaged and then around to the front some of which is still intact. Hue is now a listed World Heritage Site. The drivers took some time to stop at the back where you can still see most of the damage, and it is like there is still this unbelievable unseen pain there. When we got to this site, this intense and overwhelming sense of sadness and loss swept over us, and it wasn't like the sight of the ruins was particularly sad, but somehow it provided a stark reminder of what has happened there. The history of Hue is particularly horrific -- first the Ho Chi Minh forces came in/seized the town and eradicated (I won't go into details, but it is grim) a number of the intelligentsia and scholars, monks, and wealthy merchants who they felt were collaborators with the South, and then the Americans/Southern contingent worked to regain the area and bombed the place like crazy to take it back. It took 3 weeks for the Americans to retake Hue and tens of thousands of people were killed in the process, of course most were civilians. When we were talking to our cyclo driver, we asked if he had been fighting there and he said, "No, just about everyone who was here died." It was difficult to say much after that, but we moved on to the newer and/or untouched parts and just tried to let go of the past.


Finally a whole-family picture! Here we are at the front gate of the Imperial City in Hue.

Another view from inside the Imperial City. This is pretty much where the last dynasty in Vietnam was housed. The last emperor here abdicated his throne and handed over power to the ruling party in 1945. The Imperial City housed within the Citadel was a completely intact and working city up until this time. When you are inside, and after watching this really amazing computer generated reconstruction of the city and reenactment of some of the palace activities, you really get a sense of what it must have been like before it was destroyed.Vietnam is so incredibly picturesque -- you see things that you think you would only see in a National Geographic magazine from years ago. It is great to see so much that still speaks about the past over here. This is truly an amazing and beautiful place.

Until our next post . . .

Skye, Ronato, Kai & Pippin