Happy Fourth of July! The Vietnamese naturally don’t celebrate American Independence Day, so the Duke students decided we should do something patriotic during the day (though I think fireworks could be a flawed plan). We packed up and left the hotel early to make our way to Hue. The bus drove us through a breathtaking mountain pass overlooking the shore and the slow-moving train below. During the ride, we stopped to look out over the beautiful ocean view and, of course, take pictures.
Our next stop was less majestic – a bathroom break at a hotel we passed. I’m getting used to the lack of toilet paper, towels, and soap, but I still wasn’t keen on using a toilet whose broken toilet seat was leaning against a wall. And I have yet to understand why there was a donation box outside the stalls. The other less than amusing bus revelation was that the middle seats some of us had to scrunch into at the beginning of this trip had actually been adjustable all the while, which would have been welcome information during that first long drive – but it’s fine, only our spinal cords suffered.
Our first stop in Hue was the Forbidden City, which is anything but forbidden these days. The emperor only goes there three times a year, but the rest of the year it’s a hotspot for tourists. Most of the complex had been destroyed by the French during the wars, but the remaining buildings still had beautiful architecture. Nevertheless, there have been so many efforts to repair and renovate the buildings that nothing about it feels real when you’re there. The room where we found a baby posed on a plastic model of the emperor’s gold throne was obviously a replica, but it didn’t feel all that different from the real thing, indicating how fake the renovations felt.
For lunch we stopped by the home of Ngoc Son, Emperor Khai Dinh’s sister. Her family still lives there and one descendant has done extensive research on the history of the house and family, some of which he told us as we were touring the water garden. We had eight courses for lunch this time, all of it prepared by the family and all of it phenomenal. We had vegetable soup, pork, rice paper paddies in miniature dishes, and lotus flower sweetsoup. One of the other dishes had tiny hamburgers no bigger than a golfball. I decided to make that my lame excuse for a patriotic meal, and that’s about the extent of my Independence Day celebration for the day.
In the afternoon, we visited the tomb of Emperor Khai Dinh. It was an incredibly intricate stone complex with many levels, each more detailed than the last. One of the first levels was a flat platform with twenty stone soldiers in formation accompanied by their horses and an elephant. Every piece of the structure was a work of art. There were panels on walls with engraved prayers bordered by pats etched out of the stone. The railings to each staircase were in the form of dragons that snaked down the stairs, their heads at the bottom with menacing snarls – their eyes (those that still remain after almost a century) were made from dark green glass, which stood out brilliantly against the dark grey stone that comprised the entire complex. Inside the main building of the tomb itself the walls were painted with so many details it became rococo – I knew each wall panel had an identical design across the room but I could barely tell because there was so much to take in on each one. A gold-plated statue of the emperor on his throne sat before his body, the whole arrangement elevated on a platform above the heads of visitors.
Outside the entryway to the interior of the tomb was a dull red gate, open only a crack. Somehow, the gate seemed to escape the notice of visitors who were busy admiring the architecture, but the red against black stone caught my eye. I poked my head out the gate keeping half of my body inside in case I had to make a quick retreat. At first I saw only grass and trees on the slope of the mountain we were on, but as I looked up the hill, I spotted something else. It was hard to see through the trees, but there was a structure the size of a small house. I didn’t want to trespass, but the gate was open and I couldn’t restrain the urge to go explore. I slipped through the gate and hiked up the little slope, more and more details coming into view as I approached. It became clear it was not a house, but another shrine.
The building was far less elaborate than the tomb I’d just left, but it was made of the same ash-colored stone and had a beautifully detailed roof. It was completely open in front and, while I dared not go completely inside, I could see a simple white stone table as an altar with offerings of candles and flowers sitting on it. Others had clearly been their in a less respectful manner as I saw graffiti on the walls inside, some messages written in Vietnamese, others pictures (including one of Ho Chi Minh). A few paces in front of the building was stone slab standing waist-high with engravings on the front and recently burned incense in a small sand pit behind. I still have no idea what this space was honoring, but being here made me feel still and meditative. Only the fear of being left behind by my group motivated me to go back down the hill and through the gate, but I left with a unique and personal experience.
Back on the bus, our guide picked up his microphone (again, ugh) and gave us his usual mix of interesting and questionable information. He had attended Cornell University so I’m sure he’d been around Americans often enough, but I feel as though he may not have picked up on what westerners find appropriate. I sat here dumbfounded as this Western-educated man claimed that an affinity for colorful clothing makes the last emperor “a gay.” I must admit, I judged him for a moment but I realized it’s just a cultural difference about accepted behavior of men and women – my judgment was nothing more than western elitism and hypocrisy, so I pulled myself back into a place of cultural understanding.
The next tomb we went to, that of Emperor Tu Duc, was completely different from the last. Where the previous tomb had a hard powerful appearance, this was peaceful and serene. There was a lot more land to this one with lots of lily ponds, gazebos, trees, and nice little dirt walking paths going all the way around the property. I discovered the reason there was so much space for just one man’s tomb is that, after an emperor died, his fifty or so wives were unmarriable and had to live out the rest of their lives at the tomb. It’s a cruel fate even in so nice a place as this. This information gives the walls spotted with giant, impenetrable red doors a much different feel. I started out going around with the tour guide’s group, but sometimes I get frustrated with tours where someone is always telling you where to look and what to think – I always feel like I’m missing out on part of the experience.
Instead, I broke off on my own to explore the back areas of the compound where there were no people. Along the trail were small spaces that appeared to be shrines of some kind. Each had a small set of stairs leading up to a stone courtyard with a focal point in the center. The first was a large stone tablet one-story high with engravings that presumably spelled out a Buddhist prayer. The next courtyard looked even more ancient with darker, more worn stone. At the head of the space was a smaller tablet only as high as my head with an intricate stone and porcelain mosaic in the form of a colorful dragon. Behind it was a square-shaped space walled off except on one side. Inside that area was another wall, identical but smaller, almost like a small box set inside another except that neither box contained anything. I walked all the way through the stone corridors between the walls then entered the space sectioned off by the interior wall but neither contained anything to report – no art, no altars, nothing. It felt like walking through a maze but with no end goal – I still have no idea what it could have possibly been used for. Eventually I made my way all the way around the compound, eventually ending up back at the lily pond (which might be more accurately referred to as a lake). I can’t say which of the two tombs I enjoyed the most because they were too different to compare, but in both cases the points where I ventured off on my own are the most vivid in my memory.
After dinner (which consisted primarily of me stuffing my face with tiny crispy egg rolls) we went over to the bridge. It’s a large modern bridge with a sidewalk on one side of the road for pedestrians. Here we stopped and hung out like all the locals around us. The bridge was equipped with spotlights that changed color every minute, reflecting off the white painted steel of the bridge. This provided a wonderful backdrop for our impromptu photoshoot (which was appropriately epic). On the other side of the bridge we stopped for sweetsoup. During my time in Vietnam thus far, I’ve had three sweetsoups and none of them bore any resemblance to the others. The first in Ninh Thuan was a drink made of cold sweet liquid with pieces of gelatin thrown in, the second in Hoi An was a thick custard made of corn, and this was more like a smoothie with whole chunks of banana in the mix. Apparently there are more varieties of sweetsoup than any of the Vietnamese roommates can describe, so it appears I’ve only just scratched the surface on this desert.
To get back to the hotel, someone suggested taking cyclos, which is a type of rickshaw where someone pedals a bike set behind a larger seat for the passengers. Frankly, the concept of a rickshaw has always bothered me to some extent. I know I’m giving someone business, but at the same time it conjures up images of royalty being carried around on the shoulders of slaves and I’m no princess. I have two good feet, I can do my own walking and pedaling.
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