Day 21 - Hue was Bombed on Tet

None of the commanders in the US army during the Vietnam War thought that the VC would even consider attacking on Tet. "It's like your birthday, Christmas, and New Years all rolled up into one," one commander remarked, but 40 years ago hue was attacked and captured by VC forces which leaving most of the city in ruins for years. We had originally planned to go somewhat further north that day, but since non of the buses seemed to be running, we had stopped even trying trains, we stayed put. We decided to see the Citadel, which is supposed to be the main tourist attraction for the city. Inside the large walled Citadel is what is left of a palace for one of the ancient kingdoms of Vietnam. The Vietnamese can go to these sorts of sights for free on Tet, and up to a few years ago so could tourists, but I guess they realized that the tourists would pay anyways. I've seen ruins before, but this palace is not that old and what is left is not that well kept up. Some parts near the were pretty well kept up with big statues and huge iron relics, but the further we got in the more it became half restored buildings and empty fields. There weren't even really many signs. Sometimes we'd just end up walking off a path with no idea if we were really supposed to be there, the lack of guards was also apparent. We saw an elephant at one point that they seemed to be giving rides on, but when we came back to the area it was gone. I'm not sure where since it's hard to hide an elephant and I'm not sure I even saw a gate that was big enough to fit it. It didn't have anything to do with the place besides them thinking, hey we have some space how else can we make some money.

We walked around for maybe half an hour at one point without seeing anyone looking official or in charge. Some of the palace area was pretty interesting, but most of it was just similar looking old walls. Apparently there had been another fortified section in there, a Citadel within a Citadel within a Citadel, but it had been totally destroyed in the war, ancient walls just don't compete with modern bombs. The most interesting thing there were these windows on a playhouse whose outside was done in a series of tile coverings. Each tiny tile had a different painting on it creating a sort of mosaic effect. We walked form there back to the hotel as we were still tired from the previous day and there wasn't really anything else we wanted to see in the city. As we left I looked at all the motor bikes streaming past us on the street. Rarely did I see one with only two people on it. The average one had two people, and at least a third had more than that. Whole families would ride on a single moto. One little child would be in front wedged in between the driver and the front; another child would be sandwiched between the driver and another adult passenger on the back. Some even managed to get five people on. Steve says hes seen seven people on one moto in China, and while I can't imagine how that would work I believe him.

People in Vietnam seemed to treat the moto more like a family car, they'd just pile everyone on and take off. I saw old women riding side saddle on them, and people with a months worth of shopping. The street there are so filled with them it can be surprising to see and actual car. We got back to the hotel where the owner and his son were stringing up lights on this small orange tree. We had seen them all over as they have some sort of connection to Tet, along with these bushels of yellow flowers that were out in force. The father was happy to let me take a picture of him with this little tree, it's in the last entry, which he barley came up to in height. He insisted on taking a picture of me with the tree as well, though me and the tree are only in the lower left hand corner of the picture. Dave joked that he wanted to make sure the name of the hotel featured prominently in the picture. We decided to go for dinner at some place that the book said had live Vietnamese traditional music.

The food at the place was pretty expensive, especially for sort of average quality. The most fun thing on the menu had to be the "thinkly sliced meat." Half way between thinly and thickly, there was no real way to tell what they meant. I ordered it and I'm pretty sure they were trying to say thinly since it wound up being a hot pot. We had gotten these before the show was supposed to start so we were more than half way through our meal when they came out to preform some music. There were a variety of people playing instruments that seemed to only have one or two strings. The two women who did the singing were playing what were essentially a pair of chopsticks and a set of tea cups. The tea cups seemed to take some skill as she could make some interesting sounds with them. The music was OK, mostly it was just soft and unremarkable. Some of the other tourists there swarmed around to get pictures, though I'm still not really sure why. Honestly the only way the place could have had a more Disney world tourist vibe is if they had started singing "It's a Small World."