December 25, 2016
Of emperors and palaces: Hue
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IT poured yesterday when we rode past the citadel, Hue's main attraction. We saw little because of the rain, darkness and traffic and our only sensation was relief.
In the middle of the main bridge stood a tall, paunchy westerner with grey hair. He had a bemused expression as he watched the tsunami of motorbikes (anything bigger is banned) bearing down on him.
He gave us a look that said "How the heck did you get in with that lot?"
We saw him again this morning. He was two tables away in the same hotel, entertaining if over-ebullient. He doesn't so much talk to his overdressed wife but address the room. Even I can spot his Noo Yoik accent. Our guess is that he's one of many Americans visiting sights they wish they hadn't seen 40 years earlier. Then they were young and lean; now they're not.
The Vietnamese themselves are little bothered about the war. It's tourists who visit the heaps of American helicopters and tanks dumped in an open space just up the road.
The Vietnamese find the citadel more interesting. It's a tourist attraction to locals and foreigners alike, an imperial palace. I nearly wrote "ancient" imperial palace but, built in just the 1800s, it barely counts as historic, let alone ancient.
The mistake is easy because it looks older. Neglect and humidity have assured that. Restoration is going on but most of it has gone beyond hope, destroyed first by the French and then in American bombing.
Your eyes and brain tell you you're centuries back but the video laid on for visitors shows a computer simulation of the last emperor. And how can it feel so sure what he looked like? Because he was alive well into the photographic era and his picture is pinned to the walls. He was parading in his glory even between the two world wars.
Must have been a dull life, though. He had decisions to make, naturally, but the paperwork and research fell to the civil service, the mandarins. The rest of the time, when he wasn't being fawned over or carried about in a pallaquin, he passed his time in the library of celestial peace or with what are described loosely as "the ladies of the palace".
One or two emperors learned French, even studied in France, the better to undermine the real rulers of the country - the French. Others, according to panels on the wall, were rather too keen on "music and dancing".
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It's a pleasant place to walk, the citadel and, sadly due to the bombing, there's room for all who want to visit.
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As for us, we are having time off to recover and wash socks and rebandage Steph's wrist. Right now, therefore, we are sitting beside the Perfumed River, watching yellow and red boats disguised as dragons to attract tourists.
It's all too pleasant to hurry.
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