Hue

After Hoi An and Danang I made my way up to Hue by taking the train along the coast. The train ride was beautiful as it went over a small pass and the ocean was visible for almost the entire journey.

The city of Hue was once the capital of Vietnam and thus contains a huge citadel in the centre of the city where the emperor used to live. Inside the citadel complex are several different areas including museums, both female and male quarters, and several temples. On the first day I spent over 3 hours there wandering around looking at all of the buildings and I didn't even see everything.

Around the city there are also several pagodas, temples and tombs including The Thien Mu pagoda, the pagoda from which the monk who burned himself to death in protest in Saigon in 1963. For the afternoon and following morning I toured around some of the tombs and pagodas. They are all quite extravagent, although after a while they all seem to look alike so I didn't spend time to visit each one.

The only other attraction around Hue seems to be the demilitarized zone (DMZ) which is just north of the city. I passed on the tour of this as there isn't supposed to be much there to see and the tunnels at Cu Chi are supposed to be far more impressive than the ones here.

My time in Hue was short lived as other than seeing the citadel and all of the temples, tombs and pagodas there didn't seem to be much else to do. Therefore after only 2 days I decided to head up to Hanoi and plan trips to Sapa and Halong Bay.





Buildings within the citadel





Pheonix and dragon statues within the citadel







A lake in the complex of the tomb of Tu Duc









A building in the tomb of Tu Duc (I think it was in this tomb)