A day dedicated to water, which even made us cut our stay in Hue short... Too bad, because I think we missed out on some beautiful monuments. We had planned to discover several imperial tombs, these impressive mausoleums built along the Perfume River. But the pouring rain changed our plans a bit. That's one of the hazards of travel.
Rainy day in Hue
Bad surprise today, a good persistent drizzle which forced us to buy a poncho at the hotel, because we had nothing planned for rain... The rain is already not great, it is not warm either, in short not the best for visiting, especially since today is planned to see the tombs of the emperors, all located outside the city... So it is driving in the constant rain that our day unfolds.
The most annoying thing is that the traffic is already not easy in Vietnam, the fact of being half blinded by the drops of water that stick to your glasses and whip your face, it's pure and hard roots as they say, and the fact of not really knowing where you're going doesn't help the situation at all.. There are times, I don't know how I do it..
We go to the first corner marked on our map, not without stopping for breakfast in a restaurant not far from our hotel. Our first place to visit is easy to find, because it is in the middle of a sort of giant roundabout sheltering a pine forest. It is the " temple of heaven Nam Gao", nothing very interesting, because it is closed and just made up of a rectangular building placed in the middle of a courtyard, we quickly move on.
The tomb of Emperor Khai Dinh
Head to the tomb of Khai Dinh, born Prince Nguyen Buu Dao in 1885 to Emperor Dong Khanh, he did not succeed him immediately, but was brought to the throne by the French on May 18, 1916. He visited France in 1922. Unpopular and in fragile health, he died in 1925.
Khai Dinh left behind one of the most surprising imperial tombs in Hue. Built of concrete, it mixes traditional Vietnamese elements (such as dragons) with French architectural elements such as fleur-de-lis or an art deco sun. Many surfaces are tiled with mosaics made from expensive imported porcelain.
For the record, the work began in 1920 and was not completed until 11 years later, 6 years after the death of the Emperor (who died far too early, poor guy...). For more information: Wikipedia is your friend.
Minh Mang's Tomb
While everyone was leaving there by bus or van, we continued our journey by motorbike more motivated than ever (yeah!) we chose to go to the tomb of Minh Mang. Lost in the middle of the forest and the surrounding villages with a large deserted parking lot. A lady will accost us to "kindly" keep our motorbike in exchange for a small coffee at her little place...
The extremely gloomy weather adds terribly to this atmosphere of a tomb and therefore of death, not to mention, in this place, the barbed wire separating the walls of the tomb from the plantations and these neighboring banana sellers who look desperate...
Here, renovation work has taken place, for comparison, here is what the door leading to the main building looked like (I don't think it's exactly the right door, but it's to give an idea of the kind of work that was done):
Still for the anecdote, the construction began in 1841, the year of the Emperor's death... Completed in 1843, there was as always a delay, Emperors do not live long enough...
But then, this cow that constantly pisses will get the better of us, we decide to go back after having more or less quickly walked around the area. I have my coffee so as not to upset the little lady (while another one makes me pay for parking anyway...)
It will be with a good meal in the restaurant near our hotel that we will end, exhausted, this very humid day.
Last moments in Hue: sheltered in a market
Here we are the next day and we are nearing the end of our stay. For this 13th day in Vietnam, it's rain again... After a quick enquiry, we are told that it rains quite often here in Hue, like a sort of microclimate (it's their Brittany, in short...)
Disgusted, we didn't want to repeat the day we had the day before, especially since the bus was at 17 p.m. anyway, so we didn't have a full day. We decided to skip all the other imperial tombs, which looked interesting.
But before leaving Hue and its rain, we have to do something while we wait... So we just go to the Dong Ba Market, crossing the Huong River (the famous perfumed river...), we will do little more than wander around because we don't plan on buying anything... We barely take another look at the backpacks, just to be dry...
