Saturday, Oct 22 - Hue

Hue  (pronounced hway) was the imperial city and capital of the Nguyen emperors from 1802 until 1945. 

The first stop of the day (after lunch) was the Hue Citadel and Royal Palace complex.  Much of the area had been destroyed during the Vietnam War but they are in the process of rebuilding and restoring the complex, with the goal of completing the restoration by 2050. 

Much of the finished interior was painted bright red.

 And the tour included a stop at the grand theater that had displays of theater masks.

The entire area is surrounded by a massive moat and wall that was over 10 kilometers long.

Next stop was a hilltop temple overlooking the Perfume River.

Then we all piled onto a small boat and took a cruise down the Perfume River that bisects Hue. 

The lady on the boat brought out her paper cut outs for sale, extremely intricate.  Mary bought one with a vase of flowers for her Mom.  

We have two Imperial Tombs to see today.  The first was the Tu Duc Imperial Tomb, built from 1864 to 1867.  Our guide had fun with us trying to get us to guess which structure in the tomb area contained the body…apparently none of them (according to him).  Seems the king had the tomb built but was buried in a hidden location so that no one could find the body and the gold that was buried with him.  In order to assure the location's secrecy the 200 laborers who buried the king were then beheaded.  To this day the location is not known.  And reports are that a great treasure was buried with him…also never found.  Tu Duc was able to “take it with him”.

Next stop was to see a demonstration of conical hat making and incense making.  We didn’t get to make our own though.

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Watch the incense making

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The second Imperial Tomb that we visited was the Kai Dinh, a smaller tomb built from 1920 to 1931.  It had some European influences in the architecture.