Hue, the imperial capital of ancient Vietnam.
It bore witness to the countless struggles and wars of the Vietnamese nation against the encroaching Chinese armies. I remember one war hero, a peasant girl called Madame Trung. A legendary monarch, she trained an army of invincible female soldiers and fought off the Chinese occupiers! And it threatened the invaders so much that the general had all his soldiers strip naked, to stop their approach.
I want to rail against the wind and the tide,
Kill the whales in the sea,
Sweep the whole country,
To save the people from slavery,
And I refuse to be enslaved.
That's a lil historic tidbit from one of our Vietnamese friends.
But i digress. As we arrived in Hue we were pleasantly surprised to find that we'd caught the biannual Hue festival! A couple of weeks of fine art performances, celebrations, dancing and singing and loads of Saigon beer! Well that's stretching it but you get the idea. Banners ablaze, party decorations and all. We talked to the first of our blue-shirted angels, official student volunteer festival helpers, who kindly got us a cheap and good meal for lunch.
Our stomachs filled, we found ourselves at the Imperial Citadel, the stronghold of ancient Hue. A sprawling castle complete with moat, fittings and walls. Comes with gardens, pavilions, exhibits, temples and cutthroat ticket collectors. All sold separately, batteries not included. See it for yourself.
Five-thirty - and the festival programme begins! We watched a German dance and musical troupe strut on the stage, putting up a fine native dance both humorous and entertaining. We dove out of the crowds for dinner, which turned out to be awful. "Chopped like carrots, we were," as Yoda might put it. Bay was so pissed he left his entire plate untouched. We left the place in a huff.
Well, time for my travel mates' input.
XX guy's diary entry:
"Majestic and nice. Important thing here is the 'Five big beauties', damn pretty. Managed to take with one of them. Kept harping about them & looking at the picture. Saw another 2 volunteers. Asked about Hue festival & prices of food. Roadside stalls typically charge foreigners more. Then watched performance at Citadel by Germans. Good footwork, music, singing. Went for dinner at some 'black shop', swindling mother. Horse complained but nobody paid attention to him. Left quickly and tried to catch performances inside imperial city. Great disparity between local and foreigner prices for entry tickets.
Took a cab down opposite to see over festive activities along the riverside. Ate at a posh restaurant, cheap 'festival' beer & nice delicious fried rice. Walked down riverside, saw alot of chio bu, kept talking about chio bu, saying we want to marry Vietnam girls.
The Vietnamese were fascinated by the public portable water fountain. They used it to wash hands instead."
YY guy's diary entry:
"6 USD for our Perfume River boat trip. Took motorcycles from hotel to wharf. We had a boat tour along the river to Thien Mu Pagoda, Tu Duc Mausoleum, some temple and Minh Mang Mausoleum. Mausoleums are cool but look the same after a while... Terrible lunch on the boat (included).
Highlight: Met friends Hsieu, Luk & Eng. Friendly and funny guys! Two study in SG so could converse w/ us in English. Eng & J. totally hit it off, talking endlessly abt girls. Guys also bought local tix for us :)
Boat trip ended early so we went to Dong Ba market, where J. n MJ bought slippers. Then went to a shopping centre & supermarket. Cabbed back to hotel. Dinner @ a cheap and gd place. Met guys again, had dinner w/ Hieu at roadside stall. Great & really cheap food!
Caught the sleeper bus to Hanoi, we were chatting to a uni lecturer but were chased off the bus to our correct bus. ZZZ..."
That's pretty much it. Oh i learned from Eng that the Vietnamese language used Chinese characters before the French invaded and forced them to convert the written form into the Roman alphabet.
And it's pretty interesting that Vietnam's shops, like merchant and F&B ones, require little business or customers to survive. I think they buy the place and live in it as well. But there's a problem of privacy, say when people are shopping for groceries and they see the shopkeeper's wife changing nappies for the baby.
Perhaps privacy is the prerogative of the developed world?
Long journeys make me fantasize about cosmic thoughts again. What might be going on in the universe this exact moment? The birth of a star? The collapse of an alien civilasation? Some bearded old guy playing chess with a snickering, sly young man?
I woke up stiffly on the bus the next day, in Hanoi. Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, and one of our disliked cities. We were off to a bad start - pickpockets running off when we alighted, and hotel touters bagnapping my bag. Got ourselves together, and we walked around the Old Quarter.
The Sword Lake hung in the middle of the city. Once upon a time, King Le Loi handed his sword to a giant turtle in the lake after his victory over Ming Dynasty invaders. And a temple in the middle of the lake houses the skeleton of a giant turtle, aged 500 years ago. Thus the legend was proven.
We met some SGeans of the same age there. They had just began travelling, and have already had themselves Kanned several times. We felt an immense sense of schadenfraude. Nah.
A taxi with a hacked meter got our moods upset. We grabbed some hard train seats for the route to Lao Cai, then went back to catch a Water Puppet show, a cultural highlight of Hanoi. It was pretty cute, but the lack of subtitles didn't help our comprehension of the story. Dinner we solved with some pork entrails noodles. Fat and sinful stuff.
Hanoi pissed me off. Awful inconsiderate traffic, sullen faces everywhere we go, high prices just because.
Give me Halong Bay.
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