"Love you long time", Full Metal Jacket was set in Hue, illustrating how American troops drove the NVA out of Hue which they had held for just 25 days after sneakily breaking the Tet ceasefire and taking the city form the South. Hue is the ancient centre of Vietnam, where the kings hung out. They don't have a King anymore, the rightful heir to the throne lives in Paris and is apparently pretty happy there. There are some interesting old sites, and some reconstructed old sites - which confuses me a bit; are they still historical if they have been restored, how much restoration can you do before it stops being historical and becomes a replica of what used to be there, the same as the original but now with the added comfort of air conditioning? We have been having a great time in Vietnam and have been here longer than we planned, therefore we only stayed for two nights in Hue, which was probably enough. We enjoyed the city tour, particularly speaking to a French hippie chick who kept explaining that she hated city tours.... She was also keen to provide us with tips on how to get by on $10 a day, we had to stop her there....we like washing, we don't like dreadlocks and are not prepared to drink our own urine yet.
Pictures:
1. My head in Dragon's mouth.
2. Frenchie with Guardian statues.
3. Gate of ancient Citadel.
4. Traditional Vietnamese conical hat being made.
5. Coralie wearing hat.
6. Remember that monk who set him self alight in 1963? He was driving this car until about 10 seconds before he stuck the match.
7. School of Monks.
8. Frenchie, a god and me.
9. Defensive moot of Citadel now looks pretty.
10. I asked Frenchie to do a hippie face, as you can see, she does hippie really well.
Hue était le point de partage entre l'ancien Vietnam du Nord et Vietnam du sud, pendant la derniere guerre. Les environs ont donc été énormement bombardés et touchés par les produits chimiques; aujourd'hui heureusement tout a repoussé et la ville semble sereine au bord d'une belle riviere appelee The Perfume river. Nous avons seulement fait un tour organisé de la ville et ses environs pendant une journee car il n'y a pas tant de trucs interessants à faire (pour nous en tout cas). La visite nous a permis de voir d'anciennes tombes et palaces de la derniere dynastie des rois; les paysages environnants etaient superbes (beaucoup d'eau et de plantes de lotus pour rafraichir les pieds du boudha et du roi bien-sur!) mais les batiments n'avaient rien de particulierement memorable. L'apres-midi on a fait la visite de la citadelle, qui comprenait jadis des centaines de batiments constituant la ville imperiale (pas d'acces aux gens normaux, juste la famille royale); ce fut rapide car il ne reste que deux ou trois batiments, le reste ayant été bombardé par les americains ou detruits par les cyclones et autres moussons. C'etait pas grave car on avait tres chaud et il etait temps de rentrer pour avoir la clim...On etait un peu en retard sur notre itineraire à ce moment-la donc on est partis au bout de 2 jours.
