Hue Things to Do

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Built in 1826, the Royal Theater with its pagoda roof and colorful interior is still used today for performances in association with the University of Fine Arts. The traditional court music - nha nhac has been declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. The music features lutes, zither, fiddles and drums.

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Beyond the Thai Hoa are two buildings facing each other across a courtyard. This is where the mandarins would prepare themselves before an audience with the emperor. The large bronze cauldrons on either side date to the 17th century. The halls house museums today.

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This was the throne room of the emperor. Thai Hoa - palace of Supreme Harmony - is the most spectacular of Hue’s palaces. First constructed in 1805 and rebuilt in 1833 with its ornate roof supported by some 80 carved columns. The emperor would receive his homage from a raised dais - military mandarins on one side and civilians on the other - divided into a further nine separate mandarin ranks. The room behind the throne room - which now houses a small video theater showing a representation of what an imperial audience must have looked like, as well as a model of the Imperial City at its height - is where the emperor used to get ready to make his big entry from.

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The Noontime Gate is one of the four ways in to the Imperial City from within the Citadel - a fortress within a fortress. Within the gates and the moats was the imperial administrative heart of Vietnam. The Ngo Mon Gate is the most impressive of the four. Built in 1833 as the principal dramatic entry, there were five ways in. The central main gate was for the emperor alone. The two gates on either side were for his elephants. Doors on the wings of the gates allowed the more mortal folks - civilian mandarins on one side and military mandarins on the other. You pay your entrance fee (50,000 dong) in the elephant gate on the left while locals pay their fees on the right.

Above the gate is the Five Phoenix Watchtower with nine roofs - note the center tiles are yellow as the emperor passed underneath here. The side roofs are green-tiled. Within the Imperial City, strictly royal buildings were all yellow-tiled. The watchtower featured the Ngu Phung/Belvedere of the Five Phoenixes where the emperor would appear on important occasions such as the declaration of the lunar New Year or … his abdication.

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Cot Co or Ky Dai (Knight’s Knight) was first erected in 1809 and enlarged in 1831. At 37 meters high, it is Vietnam’s tallest flagpole. A typhoon knocked it down in 1904 and war in 1947. In its present incarnation, the flagpole has been standing since 1949, though not always flying the same flag. The flag tower stands on the banks of the Perfume River in front of the southern walls of the Citadel whose walls extend for some 10 km. Along the river in front of the tower is a model of one of the Imperial barges that used to be at the whim of the emperor.

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I took my tour of the DMZ with the Hanh Cafe which involved a very early start - I was picked up from my hotel at the god awful time of 6.40am. We made our way out of Hue towards the town of Dong Ha which is located about 20km south of where the DMZ was along the Ben Hai River. When we reached Dong Ha, we headed inland on Highway 9 which was built by the French in 1904 to provide a link into Laos and was used by the Americans as a major supply route. We passed by several wooden stilt houses that belong to the Bru people and stopped off at a rocky outcrop known as The Rockpile which was used as an observation post and artillery base by the Americans from 1966 to 1968. We then carried on, west, along Highway 9 to the Dakrong Bridge which was bombed and rebuilt several times during the war. One of the many Ho Chi Minh Trails which were used as north-south supply routes for the North Vietnamese during the war leads away from the bridge, having been paved since the war. Next, it was up the hill to Khe Sanh Combat Base - an American base with an airstrip that was attacked by the Viet Cong in January 1968 as a diversion in preparation for the Tet Offensive. The Americans held on for three months under heavy fire, but after Tet, withdrew back to Camp Carol. Next it was back to Dong Ha and north along Highway 1 to a memorial that marks the southern boundary of the DMZ and then across the Ben Hai River which marked the former DMZ to visit the highlight of the tour - the Vinh Moc Tunnels which housed about 300 villagers during six years of the war. The tour cost me 240,000 VND in Jan 2009, which included all entrance fees. More information and photos of my DMZ tour can be found on the page below:

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This was the final attraction we visited on our Perfume River Dragon Boat Tour. Minh Mang (1791-1841) was the second emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam, reigning from 14 February 1820 until 20 January 1841. He was a younger son of Emperor Gia Long who founded the Nguyen Dynasty.

In September 1840, the construction of his tomb began before Minh Mang was sick and passed away in January 1841. Emperor Thieu Tri, his successor to the throne, continued to build the tomb according to his father’s plans. Emperor Minh Mang's corpse was buried in a tomb mound on August 20th of 1841 and construction was fully completed in 1843.

Minh Mang's tomb is a standard architectural complex consisting of 40 constructions (palaces, temples, pavilions, etc.) designed on an symmetric axis running from Dai Hong gate to the foot of La Thanh (Surrounding Wall) behind the Emperor's tomb. Tan Nguyet (New Moon) crescent Lake embraces the circular Buu Thanh (The wall surrounding the grave).

Open: 6.30am-5.30pm summer, 7am-5pm winter. Admission: 55,000 VND.

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The Hon Chen temple stands near the bank of the Perfume river, about 10km upstream from Hue. It was built for the Po Nagar sect, a minority community, which worshipped the Goddess of the Cham. The sect continued with Vietnamese followers and the goddess was named Y A Na, the Heaven Goddess. The centuries-old temple has a simple design, but when it was reconstructed in 1886, it became larger and more attractive.

Admission: 22,000 VND.