A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
It's been raining for two days.

You'd think I'd be OK with that, having seen my share of drizzle, sprinkling, showers, and rain while living in the Pacific Northwest, but there are crucial differences. First of all, Seattle has a lot more pavement, and an operating drainage system. Second, the main mode of transportation in Seattle is not motorbikes. Finally, in Seattle I am not walking down muddy clay roads to visit Nguyen royal tombs.

Yesterday's wet and ill-favored outing was to visit these tombs not far from Hue via river boat. I had optimistically slathered 45 sunblock on before leaving, but ultimately the caked dirt from walking through mud would have protected me anyway. Our first stop was Thien Mu, the lovely round tiered pagoda that is something of a symbol of Hue. Out back they have displayed the Austin Mini which carried the monk Thich Quang Duc to his famous government-protesting self-immolation in Saigon in 1963. The pagoda is a beautiful building, actually, and at this point it was only drizzling so I was still in a good mood.

At our second stop an amazing thing happened -- all twenty of us refused to get out of the boat to se Tu Duc's tomb. Not because it wasn't a nice tomb -- it actualy got a very nice write-up in the Lonely Planet. However there were a number of factors arguing against the visit: it was raining harder; it was a price-gouging six-kilometer motorbike ride to the tomb and admission was a whopping $4 in addition; and we were heading to two more tombs and were living in hope that the rain would stop. That hope was in vain, as it turns out. This mutiny seriously pissed off the boat girl, who presumably lost out on whatever kickbacks she would have gotten from the motorbike drivers, but it did create an unexpected atmosphere of camraderie among the passengers which made the fact that we were stuck inside a bit more palatable.

After another pagoda, which I did visit (nothing special) and another tomb, which I didn't (described by the guidebook as a gaudy concrete monstrosity that is "symptomatic of the decline of Vietnamese culture"), we got to Minh Mang's tomb, where it really started to pour. Despite the awful weather, the tomb, a series of buildings, courtyards and gardens designed by Minh Mang himself before his death in 1840 were absolutely gorgeous. Statues, elaborate landscaping (we're talking artificial lakes here), and Chinese-style buildings on a series of small hills blended perfectly into the environment. Too bad those Nguyen Kings were so abysmally bad at ruling Vietnam -- some, at least, had good taste.

2003 Katy Warren










posted by Katy at 9:14 PM