Hue is a pleasant medium sized city of over a million in Central Vietnam, just a bit smaller than Danang, but quite a bit less touristy. It’s the former capital of Vietnam, from 1802 to 1945 during the Nguyen dynasty. It was also a major battleground of the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War, which was lost to the Vietcong with many civilians being massacred. It’s well located on the Perfume River, which is supposedly named because it carries lots of aromatic plants and flowers during autumn, although I have trouble imaging this, as boat exhaust seems to the primary smell near the river. Doing a dragonboat ride at sunset down the river is a very popular thing to do.
Getting the dragonboat ready for launch
cruising the Perfume River
quite the mix of boats
Hue is famous for it’s walled Imperial City, which was taken after Beijing’s Forbidden City. But it’s also got a bunch of historical cites, a citadel, a few massive mausoleums of the former rulers, and even an abandoned waterpark. It’s also got some nice countryside and it’s only 30 minutes away from the ocean. I stayed just two nights, but definitely could have done three. I’m not going to write too much for this post though, just provide the photos with some comments. Like usual, I just rented a moto and spent the day cruising around. The first stops are the mausoleums, the big 3, built by emperors Tu Duc, Minh Mang, and Khai Din. Sadly I did not dress in traditional Vietnamese clothes for these places haha.
The grounds of Tu Duc’s Mausoleum.
Fun Fact: Tu Duc was the longest running emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty. He had 104 wives! And that’s not including concubines
Can you tell that dressing up for these places and taking photos is a popular thing to do?!
Minh Mang’s Mausoleum, 2nd emperor. He liked to build stuff and kill people.
Khai Dinh’s Mausoleum. 12th Emperor. His predecessor was exiled by the French in the 1900’s and he was mostly seen a French puppet.
Sweet tomb though.
Part of an abandoned waterpark
It’s not even that old, built in 2000
Just enough time to hit the beach in the late afternoon
The end of the line
The crossing the bridge over the Tam Giang Lagoon, largest lagoon in Southeast Asia
For whatever reason, there are cemeteries everywhere around here
Entering Hue’s Imperial City. This was the main residence later on in the dynasty.
So that was a pretty active day and a half in Hue. There’s a lot to see. The Imperial City definitely piques your interest from the outside as the outer walls are tall enough that you can’t see anything inside. There’s four main gates, all crossing the surrounding moat. Two of the gates are closed, one is for the tourist entrance and one for the tourist exit, which is a little confusing if you don’t know the layout beforehand. I got there right when it opened so it was pretty cool to have the place mostly to myself, well besides like 3 different girls in costume and their photographers haha. Dressing up at these old historical sites is basically a national pastime as far as I can tell!
The grounds of the city are pretty expansive, you could easily wander around for a few hours, but it started drizzling when I was there, so I didn’t stay too long. I needed one of those antique umbrellas all the girls were carrying around. Of course I parked at the gate on the exact opposite of exit gate, which mean walking an extra mile around the walls in the rain to get to my scooter, grrr. I stopped in the usual egg + baguette type of breakfast place, eventually returned the scooter, and was on the 1pm train to Danang. It’s so nice to have the train option again!
