Days 42-43, Hue

Each year, more people are killed 
by elephants than by sharks
( source book: Super-
freakoconomics)

Firstly I would like to apologize us for the few days which have passed since we have updated the blog. We didn't manage to access to the blog during our last night in Vietnam and since we crossed the Laos border, it has been an impossible mission to find Internet. Our trip is like a video game, we are at the third level.

Anyway lets talk about our two days stay in Hue, in Vietnam. This citadelle in a citadelle with moats around it is one of the most interesting places we had the opportunity to visit. If you watch a video presentation about Hue in a tourist centre, you will hear a lot about the famous bridge built by the Eiffel company where different generations of schoolgirls have cycled on it dressed in school uniforms...blah blah blah. 

Chill out

The truth is that my favorite place is inside the citadelle. You have to pay an entrance fee to go in and after having being followed by pous-pous, beeped at by motorbikes and hassled to buy a drink, here is a calm and huge garden with a few lucky historical buildings that have survived the bombs attacks or have been rebuilt after the war.  We stayed here for most of the afternoon. One of our activities was to spy on people from the roof of the entrance gate with our megazoom camera. 

Afterward we went to the big market again and had a dinner in a restaurant with live music reccommended by the Lonely Planet. 

A day without cycling is sometimes less funny to describe and/or to read. That is why I directly continue with our second day in Hue, with bicycles this time (sorry for my lack of transition inspiration).

The second day, we decided to visit some old temples, tombs and palace of the Nguyen dynasty. There are a lot in the 20km around Hue.

I'm sure one tourist in two takes
 this picture

In the beginning, we cycled 10 km on an easy road to the tomb of Tue Duc. This place is another piece of paradise. We learnt that the emperor that lived here let the French colonise Vietnam and that he was too weak and too interested in writting poetry in front of his personal lake. When he realised how rubbish an emperor he was, he chose to punish himself by decreeing that his tomb will only stay here 10,000  years. All these tombs are actually rarely more than 200 years old, with a peak when they were colonised by the French, because the Emperors had nothing else to do except build. The buildings look much older than they are. 

Katie thinks so too

Although ancestral techniques have been reproduced to preserve walls, it was not enough because of the extreme climate. This is why at the moment German researchers are working with the Vietnamese to find ways to restore an archway. I hope we are not ageing as fast as the buildings here.

We arrived at the second site after 30 minutes of cycling and a food break. The tomb of Khai Dinh is totally different to the first one, everything  was designed to give you the impression that this emperor was strong, definitly not like the other one.

Heavy metal or not

Because it was very very sunny, we cycled back to Hue and stopped in a "atelier" to try and solder the back rack of Katie's bike, which was broken. It was funny but not a success.