DEAR GOBO: Hue and Hoi An

This weekend was the celebration of Tran Hung Dao, the guy who founded Viet Nam (or so one of my students explained), so Steven had Friday off and we decided to take advantage of the four day weekend to visit Hue and Hoi An, two of Viet Nam’s cultural centers. I had visited both cities during my trip in 2005 and was looking forward to a second visit. We booked a flight on JetStar Airways from Ho Chi Minh to Hue on Friday morning and then out of Da Nang, the closest city to Hoi An with an airport, on Sunday evening. Because we had such a short trip, I decided, uncharacteristically, to book some things ahead of time so that we would spend less time looking for accommodation and transportation and have more time to enjoy ourselves. I booked us a room at the Phong Nha hotel in Hue for $10 a night and arranged for a ride from the airport.

On Thursday, we were up at 5:50 a.m. for our 7:50 flight and out on the corner by 6:30. We had bypassed the xe om guys in front of our apartment in lieu of a taxi given the distance to the airport, but after waiting five minutes with no empty cab sightings, Steven decided that we should head back to the xe om guys. The guys that were there were my old guy and Steven’s old guy (as we’ve so endearingly named them). My old guy, one of two, has sadly, been on a very public downslide into what I can only surmise is alcoholism and is rarely around anymore, except for those rare occasions he is yelling drunkenly at my other xe om guy. Steven’s old guy, we’ve both written off, Steven for the fact that he is a horrible driver and always grumped at him if he was more than a minute “late” coming down and me for the fact that he has over charged me on two occasions, breaking the trust that normally develops between purveyors and “regular” customers of Vietnamese establishments. But since we had a flight to catch, we decided to take our chances.

Steven’s guy offered to take us for 140,000 dong, a price that seemed high to Steven, but that I thought was reasonable given the distance to the airport, so we agreed and went to mount our respective bikes. When I went over to “my” guy , I saw that he didn’t have an extra helmet. Pantomiming my need for a helmet, he waved off my request and impatiently motioned for me to climb aboard. I shook my head, refusing and stood in between the bikes in a cloud of uncertainly until Steven handed me his keys and suggested that I grab his helmet from off of our bike. I went back into the vestibule of our apartment building, grabbed his helmet, got on the bike and we were off. As we drove, I could smell the sweet smell of alcohol on the air and silently hoped that it was reminiscent of last night’s binge, not from an early start that morning.

We followed Steven’s driver through familiar streets, loosing them briefly at intersections, only to catch up with them when the light changed. Our route took us through “dog meat street,” a street I had accidentally discovered a few weeks ago, displaying headless barbecued dog carcasses piled stacks, their heads in buckets below (perhaps for dog meat soup?). It wasn’t as disturbing zooming through at 25 km an hour (which I realize, isn't exactly 'zooming,' but in the city that is all relative..) as it had been when I’d walked through weeks before.

As we neared the airport, we lost Steven, but soon caught up, spotting them sitting at the side of the road with a flat tire. We stopped long enough for Steven to climb aboard the bike I was on and we were off again.

We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to catch our flight, realizing too late that we had overpaid our drivers by about 40,000 dong (again!), and settled in for our hour and a half flight to Hue.

We arrived in Hue and were greeted by our driver holding up a sign with my name on it as we exited the airport. Steven had suggested we purchase another backpack, so we wouldn’t have to lug my carry-on suitcase with us all weekend, so we felt quite liberated as we walked past all of our fellow passengers and the baggage carousel.
We found the Phong Nha to be a steal at $10 a night, with a huge, spacious room with windows on two sides with views of the city, cable tv, a mini-fridge, a/c and a full sized bathroom. After throwing down our things we headed straight down stairs to check out the city. Before we left, the incredibly friendly staff at the hotel arranged for our tickets to Hoi An the following day, gave us a map of the city and quoted us a price of $3 USD to rent a motorbike that afternoon.

Hue is the ancient capital of the Nguyen Dynasty which lasted from 1802-1945. The Imperial City is housed inside a citadel behind a moat and multiple layers of 30 foot high cement walls. The gates of the citadel as well as the structures within its walls are ornately decorated with ceramic mosaics, mythical stone creatures and intricately designed rooftops. Deep inside the citadel, the sounds of traffic are muffled, replaced by the sounds of crickets and the rustling of leaves in the wind. The serenity of the grounds is matched only by the artistry of its structures. Steven and I spent hours wandering around enjoying the sights and the solitude.

Before we left, Steven became determined to find the To Mieu Temple Complex which housed nine “dynastic” urns. As we had made our way through the maze that is the citadel complex, we had managed to identify most of the places we visited were from the map in our Lonely Planet, but the To Mieu and its dynastic urns had evaded us. The description itself amused us and soon we began questioning whether everything we saw was “dynastic.” “What do you think of these plant pots?” “They’re dynastic!” “What about these columns..?” “Dynastic!” Finally, we managed to find the To Mieu Complex and the urns were indeed “dynastic.”

After we’d seen all there was to see, we reluctantly left the citadel behind and walked back towards to city to find something to eat. We decided to eat at a Japanese restaurant recommended in the book. The restaurant was run by a Japanese man who had come to Hue in 1992 and having been struck by the plight of the street children, decided to come back and start a private orphanage. The Japanese restaurant is the latest of his projects, utilized to provide the children with practical job skills. By 2007 over 66 children had passed through his home on their way to self-sufficiency. Not only was it a great cause, but our meal, consisting of a selection of Japanese “tapas” priced at $3 was tasty treat.

After lunch, we walked back to our guesthouse and picked up our rented motorbike to tour the sites a little further from the city. Besides the sheer magnitude and ornate splendor of the city’s gates, the other memory that stood out from my previous tip to Hue was the memorial to the monk who had burned himself to death in protest of religious persecution by the Vietnamese government. The car that had taken him to Saigon on that day is still kept at the Thien Mu Pagoda where he lived before he died. The picture of the monk, Thich Quang Duc is one that was published around the world during the Viet Nam War and was used by many to protest the atrocities of war even though the act wasn't directly connected with the war itself. Also, surrounding Hue are the tombs of all of the Nguyen Emperors, expansive, meticulously planned estates with temples, pavilions and living quarters for the emperors to utilize both during their lives and afterward, which I remember being quite impressive.

That afternoon, Steven and I visited the Thien Mu Pagoda and the tomb of Tu Duc, listed as the most majestic and serene of all of the tombs. The story of Tu Duc is as interesting as the site is beautiful. Tu Duc rulled from 1848 to 1883 and had 104 wives and concubines, but no children. His tomb, which took three years to construct, was constructed at such an expense and through the use of so much forced labor, that his own people plotted a coup against him, which was discovered and suppressed before it could be carried out. After all of that, Tu Duc was so afraid of grave robbers that he was never actually buried in this tomb, but at an undisclosed location, and according to legend, to maintain the secrecy of his final resting place, every one of the 200 servants who buried him were beheaded.

We spent a few hours basking in the serenity and natural beauty of the sites. When it started to get dark, we rode back to the hotel and headed out on the town for dinner and drinks before completing our whirlwind 22 hour visit to the Imperial City.

The following day we caught our 8:00 a.m. bus to Hoi An and arrived at 12:30 p.m. conveniently in front of the Hoa Binh Hotel, where we agreed on a room for $15 and set off on our next day of exploration.

The most obvious difference between Hue and Hoi An was the climate. While Hue was an overcast 75 degrees, Hoi An was 85 in the shade and baking in the sun. Hoi An’s attraction is it’s Old Town, an area of cobblestone streets and 100 year old houses along the river which used to support one of Viet Nam’s most active trading centers. Now Hoi An has become Viet Nam’s tailoring capitol, with tailor shops lining ever street with shop girls offering to make any dress of any fabric to just your size in three hours for a total of $8 US. It took some willpower for me to resist the tailors this time around after having two suites and an “Oscar” dress (that I will probably never wear) on my last visit, but I was able to resist and left Hoi An with only a new pair of “Gucci” sunglasses to replace the ones I bought in Bali that lasted a grand total of three months.

After an afternoon of sightseeing on Saturday, Steven and I had had our fill of Hoi An, so we decided to rent a motorbike on Sunday morning and see some of central Viet Nam’s country side. I remembered emerald green rice fields, hosting flocks of ducks and dotted with conical hats covering heads on parallel with the horizon. Unfortunately, we must have missed that road on this trip. Our ride around Hoi An took us through busy, dirty streets, desert landscapes covered sparsely with dry grass and discarded rubbish leaving me pondering the many ways to say “ugly” in the English language as I rode on the back of our rented motorbike. We managed to ride along the coast road, very unfortunately separated from the beach by green metal fences, until we came to “China Beach,” of Viet Nam War era fame. The beach itself was one of the prettiest we’d seen in Viet Nam, but not having prepared for a day at the beach, we left after 20 minutes and headed back to Hoi An and the plane that would take us home to Ho Chi Minh.

HUE