We joined Hilary in the breakfast room above the large swimming pool and had a dazzling array of fruits, eggs, and breads. Most of the other guests were in Resort Wear in contrast to our dull colored birding garb - oh well!
Our laundry arrived back within 12 hours (we had handed in the free three pieces of clothing each at 5 PM – a novel benefit). But, due to a misunderstanding, a young man came by with a cart to collect our luggage – David had said he was going to ask for a late checkout – we arrived at the front desk with our bags. Anyway, our bus was there with our new local guide, Long, for our tour of Hue.
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| A tiny portion of the breakfast buffet - just some of the fruit! |
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| Katy and Bob’s room - the bathroom was almost as large |
We drove along the Perfume River, crossed it, and entered the moat-surrounded Citadal, built
between 1804 and 1833 with 6’ thick walls that run for 10 km. It was early for tourists and we were standing in the entry way whereupon a group of brightly dressed guards arrived with musicians and proceeded to perform the Changing of the Guard. A bus-load of tourists arrived beyond a barricade, but we had the ceremony pretty much to ourselves! (I took a 5 minute video - it was quite amazing and we were so close. I was expecting the guy in charge to make us move behind the barrier but he just wanted us out of the way in the corner! HH)
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| Wonderful costumes as they start part of the procession |
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| More of the guards coming out |
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| As they enter the Imperial Palace grounds |
We followed the guards into the Citadel and entered the Imperial Enclosure where the Emperor and his family lived. A lot of reconstruction work is going on as only 20 of the 148 original buildings survived the French and the American Wars – unbelievably we and the South Vietnamese bombed the Citadel during the Tet Offensive in ’68.
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| The unicorn - one of four animals that symbolize various aspects of life and protection |
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| Wonderful dragon on a roof corner |
We saw some very old bonsai, and walked into the palace of the Queen Mother and the concubines – a giant phoenix decorates the roof – the symbol of women.
At 10:30 we left and drove to the Bao Quoc Pagoda, founded in 1670. It overlooks the Perfume River and houses a center for training monks. We finished the tour with a stop at a market where a woman was fashioning incense sticks and had Hilary and me practice the skill of rolling the doughy incense onto a bamboo stick. We also saw how the conical hats are made before returning to the hotel for lunch.
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| One of many bonsai |
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| Side of stairwell |
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| The emperor’s house - only for the emperor |
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| The last wife of the last emperor |
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| The oldest pagoda in Hue with our guide, Long |
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| Dragon boat on the Perfume river in Hue |
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| Learning how to make incense sticks - they didn’t offer us a job! |
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| Trying on conical hats |
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| Selecting from a large stack of hats |
After lunch we all packed up and took off south along the highway through long stretches of suburban housing, shops, rice paddies until we reached the shore a couple of hours later. We climbed up a steep pass to 1300’ overlooking the sky scrapers of Da Nang in the distance. About 5 PM we entered Da Nang, an amazing collection of very modern exotic high-rise buildings, crowds of motor scooters and cycles, situated right on the beach, lined with palms, cafes, exercise areas. We continued on to the south of the city and finally found the Sheraton, an enormous complex of 5-6 large buildings, where we had a reservation for two nights. We settled in, had dinner in the coffee shop and went to bed.
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| Scenery as we climbed the pass before Danang |
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| At the Pass |
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| Da Nang Skyscrapers |
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