Hue - The Citadel and Imperial City
So on the 14th October, this must now have been about the third early start in a row - this time departing at 7.30am from Hoi An to reach Hue by lunchtime. We lost no time in hiring some Mary Poppins bicycles again and heading to the Citadel - the 19th Century walled part of the city. To get there we cycled across one very narrow and traffic-congested bridge absolutely rammed full of every form of two and three-wheeled transport you can imagine!
We headed straight to the Imperial City where they had the cheek to charge us for parking our bikes! Not motorbikes but merely your Mary Poppins jobbers as I previously mentioned! The expansive Ngo Mon gateway was very impressive with lots of ornate dragons and tiling covering the roof apexes. It was probably the most impressive building in the whole Imperial City.
We then walked across the Esplanade of Great Salutations - what a name!
The Thai Hoa Palace was full of very ornate, 2-tonne wooden columns which had all been manually replaced during restoration. It was basically one huge hall with a throne in it and a smaller room to the rear.
The Forbidden Purple City was a bit of a building site though the restored Left and Right Houses had some interesting exhibitions and a throne and dressing-up closet you could indulge in for a fee!
The Theatre was very pretty inside, though not like a western theatre - seat filled a flat floor on the bottom level, whilst the upper seating was separated on either side of the aisle.
Thai Binh Reading Pavillion was again beautiful and very ornate but in serious need of repair.
Somewhere wondering around the back of the Imperial City here a guy initially professing to be a teacher got us to fill in a questionnaire and then proceded to tell us that he also worked for the Vietnam Red Cross and showed us an ID card which I couldn't read and which I'm quite sure didn't have a red cross on it. He then started asking for cash and after saying I already donate at home and deciding I pretty much didn't believe him we ended up paying 50,000 dong between us just to get rid of him! What a waste - that was 16 litres of Bia Hoi! Good con though.
After that we went for a little cycle around the Citadel taking in the lakes and the city battlements which they'd turned into allotments!
Dinner that night featured an awesome array of plates for a Hue-style construct-your-own spring roles for dinner! Made my night and cost - oh let's see - less than a pound!
Finally after all the early starts the next day we had a lie in and did pretty much nothing all day other than catch up on diary writing and blogging and eat! A bit of relaxation at last!
We headed straight to the Imperial City where they had the cheek to charge us for parking our bikes! Not motorbikes but merely your Mary Poppins jobbers as I previously mentioned! The expansive Ngo Mon gateway was very impressive with lots of ornate dragons and tiling covering the roof apexes. It was probably the most impressive building in the whole Imperial City.
We then walked across the Esplanade of Great Salutations - what a name!
The Thai Hoa Palace was full of very ornate, 2-tonne wooden columns which had all been manually replaced during restoration. It was basically one huge hall with a throne in it and a smaller room to the rear.
The Forbidden Purple City was a bit of a building site though the restored Left and Right Houses had some interesting exhibitions and a throne and dressing-up closet you could indulge in for a fee!
The Theatre was very pretty inside, though not like a western theatre - seat filled a flat floor on the bottom level, whilst the upper seating was separated on either side of the aisle.
Thai Binh Reading Pavillion was again beautiful and very ornate but in serious need of repair.
Somewhere wondering around the back of the Imperial City here a guy initially professing to be a teacher got us to fill in a questionnaire and then proceded to tell us that he also worked for the Vietnam Red Cross and showed us an ID card which I couldn't read and which I'm quite sure didn't have a red cross on it. He then started asking for cash and after saying I already donate at home and deciding I pretty much didn't believe him we ended up paying 50,000 dong between us just to get rid of him! What a waste - that was 16 litres of Bia Hoi! Good con though.
After that we went for a little cycle around the Citadel taking in the lakes and the city battlements which they'd turned into allotments!
Dinner that night featured an awesome array of plates for a Hue-style construct-your-own spring roles for dinner! Made my night and cost - oh let's see - less than a pound!
Finally after all the early starts the next day we had a lie in and did pretty much nothing all day other than catch up on diary writing and blogging and eat! A bit of relaxation at last!
Labels: Vietnam
posted by Ian Matthias at
10/15/2006 04:28:00 pm
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