Huế, Thừa Thiên Huế, Vietnam
+43 699 131 88 770
tour@travel-with-henry.com
+43 699 131 88 770
tour@travel-with-henry.com +43 699 131 88 770
tour@travel-with-henry.comIt takes just a few hours from Hoi An to Hue – the journey had been on beautiful roads without complications. The temperatures were as always at the limit, so I was once again glad to find a good room with well working air conditioning. I was already looking forward to the old City of former Vietnamese Emperors – last year I had visited the imperial palace together with a friend and was very impressed with it. This time I will not visit the palace again – who is interested in it can find the blogpost and photos under following link:
But also when skipping the Imperial Palace, there is sufficient to visit in Hue. A series of royal tombs are waiting for the visit – on the way to the first tomb I stopped at a shop where a young woman not only sells incense sticks and the famous Vietnamese straw hats but also produces them herself. Of course the presentation is somewhat touristic, but it was interesting to see how these things are manufactured. With the machine she creates about 7000 incense sticks per day, by hand only 500. To make a straw hat by hand it takes about 5 – 6 hours. If you consider that you get such a hat by less than one euro, its necessary to think about the value of workforce.
One of the most impressive tombs is that of Tu Duc – it was built around 1865 and was designed by Emperor Tu Duc as a dwelling place and tomb. It is embedded i a huge park with an artificial lake and island – a refuge on the outskirts of the city. Today, there are also the grave sites of the Emperor and his wife.
Khai Dinh was the penultimate Emperor of Vietnam in the 1920s – he had only more representative tasks, as he was known to be a French marionette. Accordingly, his Mausoleum is also a perfect blend of Vietnamese and European architecture.
The tomb of Minh Mang is located about 15 km outside the city sublime embedded in a forest. Minh Mang reigned from 1820 to 1840, but his tomb was erected by his successor. The facility itself is huge and a very tranquil place – the grave site can be visited only once a year – at the anniversary of the death of Minh Mang.
The Thien Mu Pagoda, with its octagonal tower, is situated on a small hill directly above the Perfume River and is considered as one of Vietnam’s landmarks. The foundation of the pagoda dates back to the early 16th century, but over the centuries the buildings were destroyed and rebuilt several times. The temple itself is rather a modest building, but it was in focus of political demonstrations in the 1960s. In the rear of the area is a blue Austin classic car exhibited – with this car a monk of the monastery set off in 1963 to publicly burn himself as a sign of the protest against the politics of South Vietnam.
Hue is also a city of bridges and gardens. A special example of such a small historical bridge is located just outside the city. If you have enough time – as I did – you should go there and share some time with the locals who are hanging around there during the heat of the day.
Some of the gardens are open to the public for a small fee, others in private ownership – you just need strong nerves to walk in and take a few photos. It pays off in any case.
The highlight of this stay iin Hue has fallen to me by chance on one of my detours – a Buddhist monastery about 25 km outside the city hidden in the hills of the surrounding area. I had not found it in any travel guide afterwards, so I was once again a lucky guy to have found it.
A beautiful park with a lovingly lake builds the entrance into this small realm. The monks live in small huts around the temples and shared buildings. A very tranquil place – I know such retreated monasteries actually only from the Himalayas and was very surprised to find one also here.
