Hue

Our next stop was Hue, located in central Vietnam. It was the former capital of the Nguyen Dynasty (from 1802 to 1945) and is home to the Imperial City (Citadel), royal tombs, and ancient pagodas.

The day we arrived, we headed towards the Citadel with a stop mid way to try one of the typical local food: banh khoai crispy pancake (a rice flour batter with pork, shrimp, sprout, salad, egg and a peanut dipping sauce), yummy! 🤤 We then spent a few hours walking around the beautiful, quiet and serene old Imperial city. Despite damage from wars, many parts have been restored, and it's now a Unesco World Heritage site. The atmosphere and surroundings/views just before sunset were magical 🌅

In the evening, Vanessa had her first (well deserved) massage and we tried the traditional bún bò Hue (noodle soup) with a coconut snack from a street vendor as dessert 😊

The day after, we rented a scooter and drove 40km east towards “An Bang Village” to see its unique cemetery, also called the City of Ghosts .
The cemetery spans over 250 hectares and tombs there look like palaces or temples. They are covered with beautiful ceramic mosaics, and different kinds of motifs like dragons, phoenixes or lotus.
Some tombs cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Those were mainly funded by Vietnamese who emigrated and send back money to their families in Vietnam to honor ancestors which is very important in Vietnamese culture.
This was really impressive! It is hard to see through the pictures how beautiful and surreal this place is.

On our way back, we had one more stop around Thuy Tien Lake, an abandoned water park that stopped operating 20 years ago. There was not much to see besides one massive dragon statue that dominates the park and appeared to be the main restaurant in the past 🐉

We had a very nice time in Hue and could have definitely stayed a bit longer 😊Baca lagi