On dusty trek from Hue to Hanoi

I ARRIVED in Hue in the late afternoon of the 20th of June, after a three-hour bus ride from Hoi An.

Hue is a laid back historical town straddling the Song Huong, the Perfume River, which divides the town into two — the oldest part, the Citadel, to the north, the newer part to the south. The Citadel is the old town surrounded by thick moated walls, whose construction began in 1804. At its core lies the Imperial Close, a "citadel within the citadel", protected by another 2.5km-long moated wall.

Within it is the Forbidden Purple City, where the emperor led his private life. The newer part I would say is as pleasant as the older one, though in a different way — with its avenues, French colonial houses and gardens it may give one the impression of being in some French provincial town rather than in Southeast Asia.

The traffic is moderate, the people very friendly, perhaps the friendliest I've experience in Vietnam so far, and the long river front is so pleasant with its gardens and benches, particularly in the evening when the local people go out for a stroll or for a boat ride on the river.

I spent three days in Hue — the first and the last riding around on my rented bicycle to visit the main sights, which in addition to the Citadel and the impressive Imperial Enclosure (in spite of having been heavily damaged by American bombings during the Vietnam War) included a few pagodas and the Notre Dame Cathedral, built between 1959 and 1962 in a beautiful eclectic style that mixes European and Asian elements.

The second day I went on a one-day tour to visit some of the magnificent Royal Tombs outside Hué, and perhaps the most famous temple in Vietnam, the Thien Mu Temple, founded in 1601, really magnificent with its seven-storied octagonal pagoda (the tallest in Vietnam) overlooking the Perfume River. From the temple one has perhaps the most beautiful view in Hué, with the river below and the mountains in the background. The first part of the trip was on a boat until we reached the Tomb of Minh Mang, the emperor famous among other things for having had 104 wives in addition to a larger number of concubines, and having fathered as many as 142 children!

After that we went by minibus to another two tombs before coming back to Hue in the afternoon. For all its historical monuments, Hue was declared a Unesco heritage site in 1993.

In Hue, too, I bumped into people I had met before — one Canadian girl and Florence and Kristof, a nice Belgian couple I would go out with many times after, both in Hue and, a few days later, in Hanoi. On June 24 at 6.30pm I got another night bus with berths to Hanoi, 540km further north, which we reached in the early morning of the following day.

After many days of peace and tranquillity, it was a bit of a shock to be in a big noisy city again. However, unlike Saigon, Hanoi has an interesting old quarter and many small lakes, the most famous of which is the Hoam Kiem Lake, just south of the old quarter, surrounded by wooded gardens and with a pagoda in the middle, the Ngoc Son Temple, founded on a small island in the northern part of the lake in the 18th century.

In Hanoi I've spent a longer time that I would have wanted, as I had to wait for my Chinese Visa which I finally received this afternoon. However, I didn't waste my time as things to see in Hanoi are plenty. In fact, over the weekend my Vietnamese friend Huy, whom I met in Brunei two years ago where he spent a year studying at UBD, took me around to visit some of the main sights and museums in Hanoi. On Saturday we visited the Temple of Literature, the first University in Vietnam, and the very interesting Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, which showcases the culture and traditions of the 53 ethnic minorities present in Vietnam, in addition to the majority Viet one. In the garden some traditional dwellings and tombs had been reconstructed, and shows of water puppets take place regularly.

On Monday the 28th I went for yet another one-day trip, this time to Halong bay, another Unesco heritage site about 130km east of Hanoi. This bay on the northern coast of Vietnam features more than 3,000 beautiful green limestone islets emerging from the blue sea.

This evening I will be taking a night train to the northwest, from where I will hopefully cross the Chinese border between Lao Cai and Hekou, and I will finally be in Yunnan!

The Brunei Times