Hue: Southeast Asia or Seattle?
This is what I found myself asking the moment Claire and I landed in Vietnam's former imperial capital last Monday night. There was a light drizzle coming down and the air had bite, just like the Pacific Northwest does in February, when spring is right around the corner but still feels miles away.
It actually didn't seem so bad at first. After all, it was fresh. And that's not something you can say about Saigon, the screwy and sometimes stifling city we've been living in for six months now.
But then it lingered, that weather. For four days. I've got a sinus infection to prove it. Only here's the thing: It was worth it. And here's why: What a place! If it's not the most soulful spot in Vietnam, it's close. Tattered old buildings draped in mildew and moss. Ancient temples and tombs resting amid casuarine pine forests. A river running through it.
Oh, and it was Tet. The Lunar New Year. The holiday of all holidays in this part of the world. We stayed with my colleague, Jim, another American who 16 years ago rode his bicycle through this town and met his future wife. They now live in Maine, but go back to Hue for a few months every year, to visit Thuy's family, and expose their two young children to the charms of her birthplace.
Thanks to all of them, Claire and I were exposed to it, too. For the better part of a week, we ate Banh Tet (fried sticky rice cakes, with pork in the middle), drank rice wine, listened to locals explain their traditions, and followed the Sullivan family around on a motorbike -- the four of them piled on as if it were the last ride to nirvana.
Jim knew where he was going. He wrote the National Geographic Traveler Guide Book on Vietnam, and, not surprisingly, knows Hue like the back of his old moped. One afternoon, he walked us through the Citadel, the multi-walled fortress that housed emperors and concubines in a dynastic time. It also saw a full month of intense battle during the Tet Offensive in 1968. Evidence is in battered brick walls and bullet-scarred urns and gates. Claire, Jim and I actually said little to one another while inside the sprawling complex, so busy imaginations were inside our own heads.
In about a week, we'll probably be experiencing the same thing. My family arrives on Saturday, then it's off to Siem Reap, in Cambodia, to visit the centuries-old monuments of Angkor, one of the 'official' wonders of the world. I need to feel better. Who's got the rice wine?
It actually didn't seem so bad at first. After all, it was fresh. And that's not something you can say about Saigon, the screwy and sometimes stifling city we've been living in for six months now.
But then it lingered, that weather. For four days. I've got a sinus infection to prove it. Only here's the thing: It was worth it. And here's why: What a place! If it's not the most soulful spot in Vietnam, it's close. Tattered old buildings draped in mildew and moss. Ancient temples and tombs resting amid casuarine pine forests. A river running through it.
Oh, and it was Tet. The Lunar New Year. The holiday of all holidays in this part of the world. We stayed with my colleague, Jim, another American who 16 years ago rode his bicycle through this town and met his future wife. They now live in Maine, but go back to Hue for a few months every year, to visit Thuy's family, and expose their two young children to the charms of her birthplace.
Thanks to all of them, Claire and I were exposed to it, too. For the better part of a week, we ate Banh Tet (fried sticky rice cakes, with pork in the middle), drank rice wine, listened to locals explain their traditions, and followed the Sullivan family around on a motorbike -- the four of them piled on as if it were the last ride to nirvana.
Jim knew where he was going. He wrote the National Geographic Traveler Guide Book on Vietnam, and, not surprisingly, knows Hue like the back of his old moped. One afternoon, he walked us through the Citadel, the multi-walled fortress that housed emperors and concubines in a dynastic time. It also saw a full month of intense battle during the Tet Offensive in 1968. Evidence is in battered brick walls and bullet-scarred urns and gates. Claire, Jim and I actually said little to one another while inside the sprawling complex, so busy imaginations were inside our own heads.
In about a week, we'll probably be experiencing the same thing. My family arrives on Saturday, then it's off to Siem Reap, in Cambodia, to visit the centuries-old monuments of Angkor, one of the 'official' wonders of the world. I need to feel better. Who's got the rice wine?
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