After a night in Halong Bay we headed back to Hanoi, to enjoy part of the day, and more importantly, to collect the rest of our luggage (we'd only taken day packs), and catch the night train to Hue. Now, yes, I did take pictures of Hanoi during this time, but not of anything new (unless you count Beer Street and a bunch of us sitting at a table trying to live up to the name - wait you've seen that picture), so I'll just skip to the train, other than to say that police cars in Hanoi sound like ice cream trucks in Toronto, which, I can inform you from first hand experience, is very, very, disappointing.
So on to the night train, and the "party cabin". Yes, I've already told you about this too. Just providing a little more photographic evidence.
Now, I forget who it was, though I think it was Heather, put a comment on FB a while back regarding the number of pics of beer bottles I kept posting. In my defense I was:
a) just giving the audience what I think it wanted, and if you look at the "likes" on those posts you'll see I was pretty on;
b) wanting to introduce my fellow beer lovers back home to some potential new options, so providing a public service one might say; and,
c) trying to catalog new beers for future reference.
Not to mention these were the only shots taken on my phone that weren't coming out blurry. Go figure.
I say all of that because I don't want anyone getting the wrong impression about what we all got up to for three weeks in Indochina. So let's be clear. There was beer. There were towers of beer. Heck, there were enough towers of beer to make Neuschwanstein feel like a split-level in Burlington. And to compound that there were Australians, lots of Australians. And Brits. I had a responsibility to represent Canada in this meeting of the Commonwealth.
So don't judge.
There was also lots of cultural and historical stuff. And Hue was packed full of them. But not until we got off the train the next morning.
Our first destination was a Buddhist Nunnery for lunch, which is something they do to help support the Pagoda, it's school, and activities. Hue is pretty much the centre for Buddhism in Vietnam. Incidently in northern Vietnam the Buddhism that is practiced is a combination of Buddist, Tao, and Confucian teachings, while in the south it is straight up Buddhism.
This was lunch.
And this one is a window of a building near the ancient Tiger Arena that we visited.
Now, it's not actually ancient as that apparently means "belonging to the very distant past, no longer existing" and that isn't the case here. But it's older than old, and saying just "old" makes it sound lame, when it's actually really cool.
Huh, Ho Quyen, the name of this particular Tiger Arena, was built in 1830. Guess it's just old, and not really that even. You'd just figure a place called "Tiger Arena" would be super old.
Anyway, it's near the banks of the Perfume river, and not too far from the Citadel (which by the way wasn't to hard to be given how big it originally was), so it was a perfect place for the royal family and Mandarin's to go once a year and watch elephants and tigers brawl in the name of high entertainment. The last one was in 1904.
I could show you more pictures but it's a big grassy circular space enclosed by a wall with a gate or two in it, so this kinda says it all.
You know, it wasn't till I took this picture that I noticed how neat the shadows from the tree looked on the wall.
This is the Citadel in Hue. Perhaps calling it the Royal Citadel or Imperial City would be better, as it's those too. Within it's walls was the Forbidden City. Built in 1804 it was, I believe, in use as a residence until the early-mid 1900's, so up until the last emperor of Vietnam. When I said it was big what I meant is that it's 2km by 2km square and is surrounded by a fortified wall and a moat, and was home to only the Imperial family and a few high-ranking dignitaries.
But as you can see they'll let any rabble in nowadays.
While not looking incredibly happy, the music they were playing did sound that way.
On our first full day with Ngoc he gave us all a shoulder bag, and a little book about each of our destinations. I still have the bag (Jake fixed the zipper on it a couple of days ago); the book I promptly left on the bus. But not before I hadn't flipped through it a few times. The above is the full-page pic that introduced Hue in the book. Actually, it's my version of the pic, because it was such a great shot (the books, not mine) that, upon actually coming across it, I had to take it for myself.
As did every. Single. One of us.
This is Thien Mu pagoda. It was built in 1601, and at seven stories, is the tallest religious building in Vietnam.
It sits on top of the Ha Khe hill, which is on the north bank of the Perfume River, (I think the French might have had something to do with that name) which is what we then cruised along next in the lovely boat you see below.
Upon entering the boat the first thing I noted to my left was a display case of all the things they were going to try and sell us during this trip. I stepped outside and enjoyed the air for the duration.
The boat dropped us awhile later and we were picked up by our bus and driven to here, which at first we all thought was the Royal Tombs Ngoc had said we were going to visit, but then turned out to be just a forest that reminded me of Miller's Crossing and had me start to wonder about Ngoc's "job" as a "guide".
Turns out it provided a great view of the river.
We then however did make our way to the Royal Tombs.
These tombs are the resting place of the Nguyen Dynasty, who ruled from 1802-1945, and, if you've been keeping track of dates you'll already have figured out, are responsible for pretty much everything else we saw this day minus the 17th-century pagoda.
And no, Wendy is really little. I'm just slouching.
So on to the night train, and the "party cabin". Yes, I've already told you about this too. Just providing a little more photographic evidence.
Now, I forget who it was, though I think it was Heather, put a comment on FB a while back regarding the number of pics of beer bottles I kept posting. In my defense I was:
a) just giving the audience what I think it wanted, and if you look at the "likes" on those posts you'll see I was pretty on;
b) wanting to introduce my fellow beer lovers back home to some potential new options, so providing a public service one might say; and,
c) trying to catalog new beers for future reference.
Not to mention these were the only shots taken on my phone that weren't coming out blurry. Go figure.
I say all of that because I don't want anyone getting the wrong impression about what we all got up to for three weeks in Indochina. So let's be clear. There was beer. There were towers of beer. Heck, there were enough towers of beer to make Neuschwanstein feel like a split-level in Burlington. And to compound that there were Australians, lots of Australians. And Brits. I had a responsibility to represent Canada in this meeting of the Commonwealth.
So don't judge.
There was also lots of cultural and historical stuff. And Hue was packed full of them. But not until we got off the train the next morning.
Our first destination was a Buddhist Nunnery for lunch, which is something they do to help support the Pagoda, it's school, and activities. Hue is pretty much the centre for Buddhism in Vietnam. Incidently in northern Vietnam the Buddhism that is practiced is a combination of Buddist, Tao, and Confucian teachings, while in the south it is straight up Buddhism.
This was lunch.
And this one is a window of a building near the ancient Tiger Arena that we visited.
Now, it's not actually ancient as that apparently means "belonging to the very distant past, no longer existing" and that isn't the case here. But it's older than old, and saying just "old" makes it sound lame, when it's actually really cool.
Huh, Ho Quyen, the name of this particular Tiger Arena, was built in 1830. Guess it's just old, and not really that even. You'd just figure a place called "Tiger Arena" would be super old.
Anyway, it's near the banks of the Perfume river, and not too far from the Citadel (which by the way wasn't to hard to be given how big it originally was), so it was a perfect place for the royal family and Mandarin's to go once a year and watch elephants and tigers brawl in the name of high entertainment. The last one was in 1904.
I could show you more pictures but it's a big grassy circular space enclosed by a wall with a gate or two in it, so this kinda says it all.
You know, it wasn't till I took this picture that I noticed how neat the shadows from the tree looked on the wall.
This is the Citadel in Hue. Perhaps calling it the Royal Citadel or Imperial City would be better, as it's those too. Within it's walls was the Forbidden City. Built in 1804 it was, I believe, in use as a residence until the early-mid 1900's, so up until the last emperor of Vietnam. When I said it was big what I meant is that it's 2km by 2km square and is surrounded by a fortified wall and a moat, and was home to only the Imperial family and a few high-ranking dignitaries.
But as you can see they'll let any rabble in nowadays.
This wasn't when she said it, but it's fun to repeat so I'll say it here.
Linda commented one time that Wendy made every picture she was in look better... as she made everything look that much bigger. She's always smiling too, which helps. But in truth, Linda was spot on. This door for example wouldn't have looked out of place on the split-level in Burlington I mentioned.
These are hungry fish.
While not looking incredibly happy, the music they were playing did sound that way.
On our first full day with Ngoc he gave us all a shoulder bag, and a little book about each of our destinations. I still have the bag (Jake fixed the zipper on it a couple of days ago); the book I promptly left on the bus. But not before I hadn't flipped through it a few times. The above is the full-page pic that introduced Hue in the book. Actually, it's my version of the pic, because it was such a great shot (the books, not mine) that, upon actually coming across it, I had to take it for myself.
As did every. Single. One of us.
Feng Shui is a very big deal in Vietnam, and Gia Long, the emperor who had the Imperial Palace built, consulted with geomancers as to it's location, and then it's layout. I mention that here because I got thinking about something when looking at the above picture.
It's the gateway into the area of the citadel that was the Queen Mother's. Out of this picture is a wall, about 20 feet long, just kinda standing there in the middle of the garden, between this gate and the entrance to the Queen Mum's residence. The wall exists to block bad energy from flowing from outside the gate, onto the property, and directly into the house. It also does an excellent job of thwarting 19th century peeping toms.
Which reminds me of something else.
Phil is into role-playing games that are reinactments of actual battles throughout history. He and a few of his friends have been doing this for over 40 years. Super cool in my opinion. Anyway, Phil and I got into this conversation about the role feng shui could play in warfare.
I'm hoping he'll test it out. And Jef, if you're reading this, perhaps consider it for one of your gaming systems. Just sayin' if it's good for where to build your home and put your furniture, then it should be good for world domination too.
This is Thien Mu pagoda. It was built in 1601, and at seven stories, is the tallest religious building in Vietnam.
It sits on top of the Ha Khe hill, which is on the north bank of the Perfume River, (I think the French might have had something to do with that name) which is what we then cruised along next in the lovely boat you see below.
Upon entering the boat the first thing I noted to my left was a display case of all the things they were going to try and sell us during this trip. I stepped outside and enjoyed the air for the duration.
The boat dropped us awhile later and we were picked up by our bus and driven to here, which at first we all thought was the Royal Tombs Ngoc had said we were going to visit, but then turned out to be just a forest that reminded me of Miller's Crossing and had me start to wonder about Ngoc's "job" as a "guide".
Turns out it provided a great view of the river.
Pam always did that.
We then however did make our way to the Royal Tombs.
These tombs are the resting place of the Nguyen Dynasty, who ruled from 1802-1945, and, if you've been keeping track of dates you'll already have figured out, are responsible for pretty much everything else we saw this day minus the 17th-century pagoda.
And no, Wendy is really little. I'm just slouching.
