The Forbidden Purple City

Posted by Kylie in Asia, Trip, Vietnam

I have read quite a few novels which use the Forbidden City as their inspiration. It is a very old palace and full of stories of mystery, intrigue and scandal. So when I read that Hue, a city which is situated in the middle of Vietnam, was the home of the Citadel and the Forbidden Purple City it was quickly added onto our itinerary.

When we arrived in Hue and paid our $5 entrance fee, it swiftly became apparent that I didn’t do enough research! The city I wanted to visit is in China. The Citadel in Hue was only originally built in 1805 and was decimated by the Americans during the war. The Vietnamese have made a valient attempt to rebuild, but the reality is that there is very little of the original city left, and it is mainly modern reconstruction.

In spite of this disappointment, and mainly because we are cheap backpackers and had blown a total of $10 on this experience, we decided to make the most of it and explore the Citadel anyway. There were lots of interesting photographs displayed, and some temples to explore. However, the information on offer seemed to have been generated by Google Translate, making it often tricky to follow. It was also very dry, and contained no scandal or amusing stories. The fact that it was insanely hot and humid didn’t help the situation, and after wondering around for a couple of hours we decided to escape and get ice cream for me and iced coffee for Graham.

Enthusiastic guards at the Citadel…

Entrance to a temple

Apparently this is where the emperor used to make his phone calls..

Another temple

Dragons represent the King

The flag tower

This was one of the most appreciated ice creams of the trip so far, although I was horrified to learn that I had spent 22,000 dong on a McFlurry like creation when a simple vanilla ice cream was only 3,000. Yep I had bought a 62p ice cream instead of an 8p one.

Hue itself is a nice little town with a river running through. There are lots of delicious street food stalls, and some food which is special to the area. I’m sure I ate some meat of questionable origin, but it tasted good so I was happy. We also stayed in a very nice guest house which gave free drinks and cold towels to its very sweaty guests when they returned from each outing. They made an effort to learn our names, and best of all they had a delicious breakfast. I think we paid about £4 each to stay at the rather grandly named Four Seasons, and would highly reccommend it to everyone.