Emperor’s Tombs and Typhoons

When it rains it pours. At least that seems to be the case in Hue. It has rained solidly for the last 2 days (stopped tonight). The reason has been a typhoon nearby (what they call a hurricane round here). Winds up to 74mph apparently.

Matt tells me (3:36 in the marathon…) bbc news says at least 9 dead in Vietnam from typhoon.

You can see the rain is up to our calfs. Everything was flooded, it was actually heaps of fun – powercuts (and resulting candlelit restaurant)…

However, it did mean we didn’t get much done, and today were going to do a tour of the Demilitarialised Zone (DMZ) but it was cancelled. Not to be caught sitting around for another day, we rented bikes (again) and had a tour around the Emperors Tombs (of the Nguyen Dynasty 1802-1945 for the date seekers ;) ). I was glad we got to do this – as even though I’d done it before I was hoping Mhairi would get to see it before leaving.

First Tomb was that of Khai Dinh (ruled from 1916->1925). It’s all concrete, though it does look pretty funky. We all had fun (Mhairi, Seamus and I) messing about in the Honour Courtyard

All of the Tombs are set in large parks – seen from afar you can see how green the whole area is – it’d really be quite a nice place to make the transition to the afterlife.

We also checked out the Tomb of Minh Mang, much more parkish than the others – far more water around. In this pic Mhairi is walking through 3 terraces. Representing the three powers : heavens, earth and water. The pool beside the walkway is called The Lake of Impeccable Clarity. Hmmmmmm.. I *don’t* think so – at least not after the amount of rain we’ve just had.

Then it was onto the Tomb of Tu Duc (reigned 1848->83). Now this guy had it right, he built this Tomb/Park for use before & after his death. He had 104 wives and countless concubines. He also didn’t manage to produce any offspring. Bad luck with smallpox they think..

He was quite modest, and admitted his mistakes freely.. he did this in a most modest way – by carving inscriptions on a stone weighing about 20 Tonnes to clarify aspects of his reign. The pic on the left is his modest inscription. The pic on the right is of his tomb….

…..or is it of his tomb.. (drum roll). See he’s not actually interred here… he was buried someplace else.. with all his treasure. Sneaky guy. In order to keep the secret (as anyone would), he had all 200 of ppl who built & knew where the final resting place was – beheaded. Good job too. So there’s a huge pile of golden cash floating around somewhere… excitin’ really.

So – finally outa here into Laos at 6am tomorrow morning. Assuming I get across the border with my slightly ripped passport, the adventures will continue in Savannakhet – Laos.