February 3, 2017

 Why do I sometimes feel more exhausted on a rest day than I do on a cycling day? I guess it is because we try to cram in as much as possible on our rest days.

We also have an unwritten rule not to ride on our rest days. I think this cyclo taxi driver didn\’t want to drive today in the rain.

We passed this Pagoda before entering the gate to the Ancient City.

Today we must have walked close to 10 kms.

Our first port of call was the citadel and the forbidden city. Hue is an ancient city that was the seat of Nguyen Dynasty emperors and the national capital from 1802 to 1945. The 19th-century Citadel, is surrounded by a moat and thick stone walls. It encompasses the Imperial City, with palaces and shrines; the Forbidden Purple City, once the emperor’s home; and a replica of the Royal Theater.

We had the opportunity to hire a guide for the tour of the citadel and she was well worth the $8.00.

She gave us a lot of information about the Kings (Emperors) and their lives. How long they reigned for and how many concubines each of them had. Most of the Kings only lived to their mid-50’s – probably because of all the concubines they had – one as many as 500! The guide felt very sorry for the concubines, they were taken from their family at a young age (10 years old) and when the king died they had to be faithful to him, never remarry or have relations with another man. They could not go back to their families, they had to look after the King’s grave – they became gardeners.

We spent about an hour with her as she showed us the site. It was a very interesting tour.

The nine Urns below are cast in bronze – nine is an auspicious number in Vietnam.  Each urn depicts different aspects of Vietnamese life.

As you enter the main gate without the guide you would follow the central area, but the guide took us to the left to show us where the army would have been and where the Queen and concubines would have lived. A lot of the site was destroyed by the French in the 1930’s trying to burn out communist sympathizers. One of the kings wanted to fight against the French, that didn’t work out for him, he was exiled to Algeria. After he was exiled the French imposed the youngest son on the throne, he was only 12 at the time.

We saw a display of the Queen Mother’s house and a rickshaw that she once used. The Vietnam government had to buy it back from the French in a French auction in 2013. Our guide told me that the French still hold other artifacts that they will not return, including the gold seal of one of the Kings. Tina (the guide) gave us plenty of time to take photos.

After she left us, we were able to wander around a little bit more and take more photos.

There is a lot of restoration work being completed.  We walked through one corridor which had only been restored last year.

It was about 2:00 when we left the citadel and headed back into the town to find some lunch and the grocery store.

Then we spotted this small museum of military artifacts.  There was no one at the ticket office and lots of people inside, so we wandered in.

Amazing but we saw the Dutch ladies again. They were cycling to the Citadel. I am not sure how we caught up with them again as they left a day ahead of us from Dong Hoi. They are stopping before the big climb tomorrow, we laughed and said we will see you tomorrow.

The grocery store was huge and were able to buy more muesli and milo for the breakfasts when we don’t find a hotel that serves breakfast. We also bought some noodles just in case we need to cook our own food. If we can get hot water, we can cook instant noodles – those flavor packets make all the difference!

Tomorrow night we are staying in a fishing village, no breakfast and very little food available.

We are staying at the village, because we have a big climb before Da Nang. We will have fresh legs to do the climb. We may stay in Da Nang or head straight for Hoi An.

This is how I felt at the end of the day.