HUE, THE LAST ROYAL CAPITAL AND THE ROYAL TOMBS

HUE, THE LAST ROYAL CAPITAL

The Hue Imperial City was built in accordance with Eastern traditional designs with 3 layers of ramparts: Phong Thanh, Hoang Thanh, and Tu Cam. The Ngu mountain seves as the “front defence” (Tien an), while the Hen and Da Vien mounts serve as “left and right dragon and tiger” (Ta long huu ho). The Northern, Esthern and Western sides are barred by Ho Thanh ha Canal, while the Southern side is barred by the Perfume River (Song Huong). Thus, the Capital is defended on four sides by rivers (Tu thuy trieu quy), and its play-out has all the advantages as laid down in the old classical rules. Choose the best Vietnam Travel Deals for your vacations.

One can detect some influence of the Vauban style in the Citabel, but the general architecrtural design is predominantly eastern. The whole Phong Thanh rampart area, which is also commonly called as the Imperial City has a square plance and a land area of over 5 km2. It has a 11 km long perimetre. a 7m-height and a 21m-thickness (the uoter and inteior surface of the rampart are covered by overbaked bricks, while the in-between earthen layer is 18 m-thick). Its defence is boostted by the presence on the North Eastern side of an additional and smaller fortress, Tran Binh Dai (commontly called Mang Ca fortress) equiped with 21 artillery emplacement and many defence works.

The construction of the whole Inperial City with all its interior structures started in 1805 and was completed in 1832. This involed a huge manpower some 80,000 persons per day at the maximum, including soldiers, labourers and, in particular, skilled workers-and an enormous quantilt of wood and stones supplied by all parts of the country. Also, importan materials and architectural compoments were brought in from Thang Long, the former royal capital.

In ganeral, the architecture of the Hue Inperial City has a harmonious, balanced and sober beauty, to which are added the charm of flower gardens anf lotus ponds. Its imposing buildings do not produce the usual coldness and impression of overwhelming power for the common people.

THE ROYAL TOMBS

Together with the network of impressive ramparts, and the sumptuous palaces along the romantic Huong River, the royal tombs quietly lying under the have contributed to make Hue. the old royal capital, a pictoresque city.
The Nguyen Dynasty has 13 Emperos, but due to historical upheavals, oth complex and tragic, there are now oly 8 tombs each with its specific features and beauty.

All the royal tombs are localted on the South West of the imperial city, the farthest is the tomb of Emperor Gia Long (16 km from Hue) and the nearest is that of Emperor Duc Duc (3km from Hue). The setes were carefully seleted in accordance with oplimum criteria which require the presence of protetive mountains, greeting mountains, a lake which keeps water,a brook withwith flowing waters. Also, on accordance with  time-honoured concept, most of the tombs were built while the Monarch was still riegning.

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Kites fly high in the Hue sky

Kite flying is an interesting and attractive game which has been around for a long time. Previously, kite flying was an interest of families and individuals, among whom were some artistic families in Hue who have been famous for kite flying for many generations. However, nowadays there is a Hue Kite Club, managed by Hoang and Nguyen Van Cu, deputy-head of the club. Fifteen club members support the exchange and preservation of the cultural feature of Hue kite flying.

Apart from kite flying over Ngo Mon (Noon Gate), the club also participates in dozens of exhibitions and kite flying contests nationwide in Hanoi, HCMC, Nha Trang, Nghe An, Hoi An, Quy Nhon, Vung Tau, Quang Nam, Quang Binh and Quang Tri.

In the annual Hue Festival many local and foreign clubs including the South Korean Kite Club and Hoi An Kite Club take 15 kinds of kites to the sky to glide over Ngo Mon. The most striking of them is the 100-meter-dragon kite owned by artisan Nguyen Van Cu. The record-long kite took two months and 20 meters long to make by artisan Nguyen Chung Cu and his two helpers. The artisan’s kites have even been flown in France, where Hue kites are very popular and famous, and the artisan spoke with the French about Hue kites and gave kite-making lessons in some schools. His kites also have been exported to the US.

At the third international kite flying contest, Nguyen Van Cu and Nguyen Van Hoang took 40 colored kites to fly in the French skies. They were much admired by the 34 participating countries and local kite lovers. Vietnamese-French kite enthusiasts came to watch and show their appreciation for the Hue kites soaring in French sky.

The 60-year old artisan Nguyen Van Cu now lives on Mac Dinh Chi Street in the central city of Hue. His hobby of kite flying has spanned over 40 years kite. His childhood was filled with the sounds of kite-flutes of his grandfather Nguyen Van Ban.

The artisan’s grandfather had to sell some domestic utensils to buy kite materials as he was very poor. However, the melodies echoing from the flute attached to the soaring kite in the blue sky seem to sweep away the sadness of his poverty and misery.

Hue City, the gloomy tourism holy land

‘Gloomy tourism holy land’ are the words Trinh Quang Thang from Vietnamtourism used to describe Hue city, which is proud of its nearly 900 relics and the fact that it spends several thousand billion VND a year to organise festivals.

In fact, the number of tourists visiting Hue rises year after year, from 1.1mil in 2006 to 1.5mil in 2007. The number of tourists visiting the city by the end of September 2008 had increased by 24% over the same period of 2007.

However, the average number of days tourists stay in the city has just increased from 2.03 days in 2007 to 2.05 days in 2008.

Thang said that it is because Hue does not have many attractive tourism products to retain tourists.

“For the last many years, Hue has only had the Perfume River, royal tombs and Hue traditional songs to attract tourists. I consider Hue a tourism holy land, but the holy land is now gloomy,” Thang said.

Providing what tourists want or what Hue wants to provide?

Nguyen Ngoc Thien, Chairman of the Hue city People’s Committee, affirmed that Hue needs to provide what tourists want, not what Hue has already. However, when asked if the local authorities had taken any surveys on the demands of tourists, Phan Tien Dung, Director of Hue’s Culture, Sports and Tourist Department, said that no such surveys had been conducted.

In fact, Dung said that there was a survey conducted by the local Tourist Junior College. However, the main purpose of the survey was to serve the training plan of the college. Therefore, the local tourism industry still does not know what tourists want so as to better serve them.

Hue now has only several small supermarts and Dong Ba Market to serve the shopping demands of tourists. There are a lot of souvenir shops, but they offer the same things.

Hue has traditional non bai tho (hats made of the highest-quality latania leaves), rush fans, sesame candy and royal tea to offer to tourists, but it does not have luxury items to offer to satisfy the shopping demands of rich tourists.

Tourists who want to go places at night can only go listen to Hue traditional songs or walk around Trang Tien Bridge, as Hue still does not have any big entertainment complex, and because local residents go to bed at 10 pm. Hue serves tourists from the morning to the evening, but it does not serve them from the evening to the morning, when many tourists want to go out and spend money.

Hue needs tourist development strategy

Experts say that in order to develop Hue’s tourism, the province needs to push up the popularisation of its images through cultural events like Hue Culture Week, road shows or television advertisement pieces.

The Hue Culture, Sports and Tourist Department has also emphasised the need to introduce Hue to tourists via the Internet, which has hitherto not been given much attention. Meanwhile, according to the World Tourist Organisation, 78% of US, 50% of French and 10% of Chinese tourists seek tourism information on the Internet.

Nguyen Phu Duc, Chairman of the Vietnam Tourist Association, has suggested 10 ideas to develop Hue’s tourism. Duc thinks that cultural events like ‘Royal night’, ‘Perfume River Mystery’ should be organised more regulary to attract tourists instead of only organised annually during festivals.

Responding to experts, Thien said that the local economy in the future will be ‘service, service and service’. However, he said that it will take time to turn the plan into reality.