Phew that was Hue

Ruins in the citadel
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Hue was the capital of Vietnam when Vietnam had Emporers and so there are many historical sites to see in the area.  We raced around in the heat seeing lots of old stuff, which we havent been doing much of lately.

In the afternoon of our first day we walked around the citadel - a large walled area which has streets inside, as well as the old forbidden city.  The forbidden city is nothing like the Chinese one, as it has been largely destroyed through wars with the French and ofcourse Americans, leaving only foundations in many cases left of the old buildings.  Some buildings have been restored to give you and idea of how the rest of it would have looked.  Outside the citadel is the most communist looking flag pole i have seen so far.  We also walked past the forbidden city through local streets to a couple of lakes used by the Emporers in the old days for rest and recreation.  We had a beer at a little lake side outdoor bar, where the owner tried to over charge us for the beer but her friend told us the right price - boy was he in trouble!

Monks praying at pagoda outside of Hue
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The next day we went on another motorbike tour (we love motorbikes) around the countryside surrounding Hue, looking at sites of historical significance such as pagodas and an Emporers tomb.  There are lots of tombs in the area, but they are quite expensive to get into so we just went to one. These emporers sure were egotistical, the tomb is more like a palace and was used by him as a summer retreat while he was alive.   We also saw an arena where the Emporers would watch tigers and elephants fight, but the tigers would be de-teethed and de-clawed so that the elephant (a symbol of the emporer) would always win.  Our  guide was so funny - he told us lots of stories about each of the places we went to, acting out the scenes with facial expressions and actions.

Incense sticks, an industry of Hue
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That night we splashed out on a sleeper bus to Hanoi as the night trains were all full and we wanted to get a good sleep.  Unfortunately the sleeper buses here are made for midgets, even Asian size midgets, so a good nights sleep was not to be had but it was fun at first to be lying down on a bus!