Next, we headed to Hue, which attracts tourists to a big extent because it was the Nguyen Dynasty‘s capital city since the beginning of time. Imperial City Hue. For 143 years, the Nguyen Dynasty kings – the last feudal dynasty the history of Vietnam worked and lived in the Imperial City of Hue. This location, which served as a royal palace, has a highly substantial and spectacular architectural design that adds many historical, cultural, and political significance. The bird-eye view from the airplane showed the devastation caused by the Noru typhoon. Everything was underwater 😭 After we landed, we took a taxi with Grab and we couldn’t enter the center where our hotel was, because the water flooded the center. Our driver went on another road trying to reach it from another direction and this triggered the Grab app into thinking that we were kidnapped and offering options to call emergency services. But it was ok, of course. Sadly, we couldn’t reach from there either. He tried a third way and it also didn’t work. He finally just gave up and apologized and he said that our hotel was 100m down the road and he has to drop us there. We got out of the car, changed sneakers into flip-flops since we were going to walk in water, got our suitcases and.. wondered if we should try it. The water was knee-height but we couldn’t lift the bags in the air, meaning they and everything inside will get wet. It wasn’t worth it, we just gave up on the hotel, but we tried first calling the hotel without success. At some point Fill had also texted them on Booking and after an hour or so they said they can send us a van to pick us up, but we’d already found another hotel nearby and asked there for a room, they had one, so we took it. So we went to the new hotel, showered and changed and went to walk around a bit in the evening. The next day we explored the city, and went to see the Historic Citadel of Hue. It was also flooded and it rained. We were with flip-flops and it was like walking in a swamp with the flip-flops. We had to walk very slowly and very carefully because the stone that was used to pave more of less all the citadel’s grounds, was very slippery and uneven. Nevertheless, the place was really gorgeous, so beautiful, a lot of Chinese style influence on the building, it was very interesting to see the architectural style, the insane amount of detail on the woodwork, on the stonework, everywhere, the colours and the shapes, I loved watching the architecture and learn a bit more about the Nguyen dynasty. .

We then continued to check out the Mausoleum of Emperor Tu Duc (1847 – 1883). It is unknown if the emperor’s body indeed lays there as according to a legend when the emperor passed away, his grieving crew cruised down Luu Khiem Lake and laid him to rest in a secret spot and all the servants who participated in the burial were then executed in order to keep the location secret and protect the tomb from robberies. Interestingly, Tu Duc, as the fourth in the Nguyen family tree of emperors, was placed on the throne by his father despite Tu Duc not being the eldest son. His father, Thieu Tri chose him over his eldest brother Hồng Bảo because Hồng Bảo was a Confucianism follower. So because he was skipped over in favour of Tu Duc, Hong Bao resented his brother and wanted to start a rebellion against him along with some corrupt mandarins, Confucians and others, however, Tu Duc arrested his brother and scheduled him to be put to death. While in prison, waiting for the execution, Hong Bao killed himself. Hong Bao’s son Đinh Đạo was also resentful and rebelled against Tu Duc. This rebellion was also crushed and he was, too, executed along with his mother and brothers. The location of the tumb is really a beautiful lush green area, full with greenery and a beautiful lake with a temple and a tomb area. I feel that right because the weather was bad, our photos somehow became very enchanted and full of contrast, because the place was colourful and really stood out with the grey sky above <3 Well.. it didn’t help ME much though because as I was going down some stairs on that day, i found myself slipping down and basically sliding down the stairs, however it was a very funny situation because I didn’t want my camera to break, so instead of trying to hold myself to not fall further down the stairs, I shouted and had my head up in the air, holding the camera so it doesn’t break 😀 😀 😀 idiot 😀 I know 😀 Anyway, I went away only with one huge blue-puple bruise on my tushie, a ripped flip-flop and a teeny-tiny breakage on a plastic piece on the camera lens, nothing serious (this was the most important part). Oh.. I also found a HUGE snail, I was so excited about it that I went to show it to Fill but when i tried to pull it up, it had vacuumed itself onto the stone so hard that as I pulled it, it flew out of my hand and fell down and.. cracked a bit 😭 It was just a tiny bit, nothing serious so it would’ve healed, but I felt so immensely stupid and guilty, I still feel very bad about it, poor thing 😭 I think we didn’t have time to see anything else for that day after that. We wanted to see the tomb of Emperor Thieu Tri, the father of Tu Duc, but we didn’t get to it. 

Next was Hoi An. See more here: https://travel.worldofinspiration.net/index.php/2024/01/14/on-the-way-from-hue-to-hoi-an-the-best-show-in-vietnam/