Hue

The highlight by night is the illuminated bridge across the Perfume River, connecting the Southern, contemporary part of the city with the Northern part where the remains of the Emperor’s city are situated.

As we’re about to leave the city for Hanoi tonight we were lucky to have watched the bridge change colors yesterday evening.

By day it is not very impressive, so we just walk across and another kilometer to the gates of the former emperor’s city. Considering it was only 70 years ago when the emperor throned over his people (it ended with WWII) the decay is present everywhere. It seems nobody cared until recently, they are now starting to preserve and restore what is left.

Guides are available on every corner, but we decide to explore it by ourselves. Various sources and extensive documentation help to build up a vivid memory and in one of the buildings we watch short movie clips which explain how the palace must have looked like in the old days, what deep-seated traditions they followed and which pieces of the culture are preserved until now.

We feel adequately informed and stroll around for a bit longer and kind of get lost on the vast area. We don’t have time for the museum and take a kind of bicycle riksha (sitting in the basket at the front, hilarious but quite uncomfortable) back to the market to fuel up for the rest of today.

All in all, a full day is enough to get a good picture of Hue, so we are eager to finally arrive in Hanoi.

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