Hue

We left the Hanoi airport Tuesday night and flew to Hue, south of the  old DMZ, so our first exposure to southern Vietnamese people, scenery and culture.  Our new guide deposited us at a lovely hotel on the river and picked us up again the next morning for a tour of historical sites. 

To be perfectly honest, we found Hue mostly boring. We learned lots of Sino-Vietnamese history, but it was presented in a repetitive,  snail’s pace style that left us cross-eyed with exhaustion in the heat and humidity, and wondering why anyone goes to see “ancient” tombs and monuments that are actually only knockoffs of the Forbidden City in Beijing less than 200 years old.  We’ll post a few photos, but if you’re coming to Vietnam, we recommend you skip Hue.

A dynasty of “emperors” who were puppets of the French colonial administration built The Citadel, an extravagant tomb in the early 1800s with huge taxes (30%) on farmers.

Hue was more of a commentary on human nature and the seemingly permanent presence of kleptocracy in human society.