War & Tourism
Hue, 20th & 21st
May 2002
My first full day in Hue passed quite quietly. I just spent the day
with Andy & Gilad exploring Hue a bit more, and paying a visit to
it's famous Citadel. Actually, we just walked around the exterior of
it, photographing the buildings from beyond the walls and checking
out some of the lesser monuments. They charge a whopping 55,000Dong
(about US$4, expensive for this part of the world) for entry, and
I've been told many times it isn't worth the price.
Actually, for most of the day, we'd walk around for about 10
minutes, decide it was far too hot and rush back to our
air-conditioned hotel room. The air-con was so powerful, it was like
a freezer, but we needed it, it was so hot today! I though the rainy
season was supposed to be starting & the weather getting cooler!
Of course, a lot of the time we were walking around, we were being
hassled by cyclo drivers and motorbike taxi drivers. Some of them
are SO persistent, to use a nice word. I reckon some of them believe
they have “The Force” (a skill from Star Wars, involving the ability
to control other people's minds to a certain degree). They seem to
think that if they nod for long enough and say 'Yes, cyclo, yes!'
for long enough, you'll change your mind and say "Yes I DO need a
cyclo, even though my hotel is less than 30 seconds walks away!"
Grrrr!
In the evening I had some 'temporary farewell' drinks with Gilad &
Andy. They're moving on to Hoi An tomorrow, and I'm staying in Hue
for an extra day. I'll either catch up with them in Hoi An or Nha
Trang in a few days.
The next day I had to be ready at the ridiculous time of 6am for a
tour of the DMZ (de-militarised zone). This is a very famous,
historic area, that divided North & South Vietnam with a 'peaceful
zone' for a few years in it's violent, war-torn history. The DMZ
straddles the whole country and is conveniently marked by a major
river that cuts across the whole of Vietnam.
We saw a few interesting sights, but most of the day was taken up
with driving around. The first sight was a ruined church which was
ok, but we weren't told anything about it. Luckily we then picked up
a guide for the rest of the trip.
We visited a few museums & sites of historic importance. But the
most interesting place was a set of old tunnels on the coast where
many villagers lived for 4 years. As Vietnam has a long history of
war, locals needed to find ways to avoid the destruction of
bombings. Many turned to digging tunnels and basically forming whole
underground villages. These tunnels were really impressive to walk
around. They were cramped, but sufficient and all needs were catered
for. The design was basic but simple and it was amazing to think
that they'd carved these tunnels & chambers out of solid rock!
We also made a short stop at a minority village. It wasn't
particularly interesting (the one's in Lao were much better) and the
village had obviously seen too much tourism. The old ladies and
children were all ready & dressed up for us, they would stand, as
though posing, then if you wanted to take a photo, you had to pay
them. I'm not sure if this is a good idea, but our guide insisted
that we should go ahead. A few people did, even though it looked a
bit staged. It was an interesting sight though, the old lady, with
her wrinkled, leathery face & black teeth, stood proudly with a pipe
hanging out of the corner of her mouth. She wore the traditional
hill-tribe clothing, and held a small child in one arm. She would
stand by us, then when she saw a camera, she would draw herself up,
wait, then after the photo hold out her hand.
There isn't much else to report for these days, I was actually very
tired from going to bed too late & getting up too early, so most of
the day passed in a daze.
I'm taking an early night tonight, it's another early start for the
bus ride to Hoi An tomorrow. Good night!
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