If you catch a night bus in Thailand, you're stuck on a regular bus with seat back that reclines slightly, and that's where you're sleeping. Deal with it. In Vietnam, however, they have sleeping buses that look like this:
At first look you might think, "Well, shucks, that looks mighty comfortable" (or perhaps something along those lines that sounds less something from a story by Flannery O'Connor). Well, it is and it isn't. There's some leg room, but it's built to Asian standards, so some of my taller, lankier friends really suffered on these rides. The buses honk constantly to announce their presence on the dark road, so unless you packed earplugs, you'll be woken up every 20-30 seconds. There's nowhere to put a bag if you aren't willing to toss it in the compartment under the bus, which I never was with my small, if-you-lose-this-you-are-at-sea backpack that held my passport and kindle and wallet. The Vietnamese also seem to have a real problem with motion sickness: I took bus trips in every country I went to, and even though I crossed much rougher terrain in worse buses in Laos, Vietnam was where I repeatedly found myself sitting next to people retching into bags. Good times.
This was the only overnight bus I ever took in Vietnam (for reasons that will be made clear). It was almost completely full when I stepped on, and as the lone Westerner I was pointed to the rear of the bus where there are three couches in a row, as you can vaguely see in this photo. Someone was already vomiting in the bathroom, separated from the row of beds by a thin wall. It was made clear to me that I was to stretch out on the middle bench next to an older man who was already couched on the wall side. This seemed a little uncomfortably intimate, but Southeast Asian men are reasonably respectful of Western women, and I was rolling with the punches, so I resigned myself to a sleepless night. I was arranging my things, settling in, until the middle-aged man who had been retching in the bathroom came out and sprawled on my other side, bracketing me between two strange men, one of whom clearly had issues with motion sickness.
With that, our cozy little arrangement had gone from uncomfortable to intolerable. I peered desperately around and saw that there was one lone bunk left in the middle of the bus, grabbed my stuff and wrestled my way into the aisle. People were speaking at me in Vietnamese and there was a plastic bag sitting on the bed, but to my eyes it was uninhabited and had no direct neighbors and was therefore mine. The bag belonged to the man sleeping in the middle bunk, who took it from me with a grumble, and I clambered up to stretch out solo instead of being spooned by two strange men. Success! I celebrated by rubbing antiperspirant on a bandanna and tying it around my face to mask the smell of vomit before going to sleep listening to The Quiet American on my kindle.
This experience taught me a very valuable travel lesson: make moves. Just do whatever you need to do, even if it seems like people are telling you that you aren't allowed. I don't know what the other riders were saying to me in Vietnamese, but once I claimed the bunk, they stopped saying it. Don't be shy. And don't take night buses.
After that less-than-restful night, I arrived in Hue, a city of just under a million inhabitants situated on the lovely Perfume River. It's almost halfway between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
I lost the first day I was there to recovering from the overnight bus ride (which always happened after I took a night bus, and sort of defeated the whole reason for taking a night bus in the first place). But on my second day I went to the Imperial City, which was built in 1804 and was home to the last emperors of Vietnam until the Vietnamese Revolutionary Government broke that party up in 1945.
To gain entrance to the Imperial City, one passes over the moat:
and through Ngo Mon gate, which was built in 1833. Of the five passageways that cut through the massive building, the middle entrance was reserved for the emperor. The two adjacent passages were for mandarins (minsters or counselors).
There are two hidden side entrances for soldiers, horses, elephants, and other riff-raff, like contemporary tourists.
The gate served as a viewing stage for events such as the promulgation of the lunar calendar (an annual event) or abdicating the throne (not at all annual).
Once through the gate I crossed over the Trung Dao Bridge to take a look at the Palace of Supreme Harmony. And it's at this point that I stop noting what exactly I'm looking at, and this blog post disintegrates into unnamed halls and palaces and temples.
Here are some more pretty photos!
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| A hall or palace or something |
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| roof detail |
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| Pagoda |
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| Americans are pretty lazy about the aesthetics of our gutters. Make an effort, people! |
Honestly, this place went on and on.
I did note that this building, the Hien Lam Pavilion, was "erected between 1821-1822 [as] a memorial for the...meritorious mandarins for their outstanding contributions to the dynasty". And who do we think commissioned this building? I'm thinking it was a wee bit self-congratulatory. Nice choice of color, though.
The Imperial City at Hue used to look like this:
But in between all those amazing buildings pictured above, a lot of it looks like this:
And this:
The Imperial City really isn't old enough for the passage of time to be responsible for this kind of damage. The destruction is partly due to bombing by the French in the 1940's and the U.S. in the '60's. But the city was really reduced to ruin when it was caught in the center of the Tet Offensive of 1968.
The Tet Offensive was a massive, countrywide assault that took place when the North Vietnamese broke a ceasefire called for the popular week-long New Year's holiday of Tet, and launched strategic attacks all over the country while fully half of the South Vietnamese soldiers were on leave for the New Year. The North Vietnamese attacked, occupied, and dug in at the urban center of Hue (among other places), so that the resulting battle stretched from January 30 to March 3 in one of the bloodiest and longest fights of the Vietnam War. When the Siege of Hue ended, 5,113 North Vietnamese, 384 South Vietnamese, and 216 Americans had been killed in the fighting, with another 2,687 Americans wounded. These tremendous American losses and injuries took some of the wind out of the sails of the American public's perception of the war, and political support for further action in Vietnam started to wane.
Just a note: as the North Vietnamese captured, occupied, and withdrew from Hue, they also found the time to commit the Hue Massacre. They killed between 2,800 and 6,000 civilians and prisoners of war who were perceived as sympathetic to the southern Vietnamese government or the Americans. When the victims were unearthed they were found bound, tortured, and some seemed to have been buried alive. This has little to do with my visit to the Imperial City, but I feel it should be noted, in addition to marveling over the architecture.
In any case, the Imperial City is a UNESCO Heritage cite, and they're working hard on restoring it.
And really, the gardens in the center look pretty good:
And I actually enjoy the abandoned, decaying aesthetic. I think it adds a certain something.
