Arriving at Hanoi station to catch the 7:00 p.m. night train to Hue, I discovered that they do things a little differently in Vietnam. The entry hall was full of people sitting on neat rows of chairs, and access to the platforms was blocked by locked glass doors. The doors, one set for each of the three platforms, would not be opened until the train was ready for boarding.
After my experience in Thailand I was taking no chances: although I had been unable to reserve a soft-sleeper berth. my hotel had found me a ticket for a hard-sleeper -- car 4, compartment 5, middle tier of three. This train, S1, had the hardest hard-sleeper berth I had yet encountered. I discovered that I needed to put the minimally quilted sleeping bag that came with the sheet and pillow underneath me, or the circulation to my lower leg would be cut off when I turned on my side. I hear that the 11:00 p.m. train, E1, is more comfortable.
I shared the compartment with four Vietnamese: an older woman and a middle-aged man traveling alone, and a father and daughter, Nga, traveling together. Happily, Nga, who looked to be in her early twenties, spoke good English and was willing to translate for me, except when the conversation turned to the war. The older woman, petite and frail, wanted me to know that she had been an antiaircraft gunner in Hanoi, but that was all I could learn.
Nga's father took the train to Hue regularly to teach journalism at the university, and I was touched when the student who met him at the station also gave me a lift to my hotel, a good distance from the station. The hotel, Thanh Noi, recommended by the staff at my Hanoi hotel, was also hosting three Intrepid tour groups. While it was within walking distance of Hue's signature sight, the Citadel, it was quite a hike to downtown.
The weather was still miserable. Although not as cold as Hanoi, it progressed from drizzle -- for my visit to the citadel, to light rain, to heavy rain -- for my boat trip up the Perfume River. By day three I abandoned cyclos, with their flapping plastic covers, for taxis. The humidity was so bad that clothes that normally dried overnight were still damp after three days.
From 1802 to 1945 Hue was the capital of Vietnam and the home of the Nguyen dynasty. The dynasty's founder, Gia Long, called himself Emperor, but it's a little difficult to go along with that when it was the French who helped him conquer Hanoi. Either way, the Nguyens set out to live like Emperors, and Hue acquired a Citadel surrounding an Imperial City surrounding a Forbidden (Purple) City. Maybe the Nguyens had been to Beijing.
Not much is left of Hue's historic buildings. The Citadel area was sacked by the French in both 1883 and 1945, and most of the remnants were destroyed by bitter fighting during the Tet offensive in 1968, when the flag of North Vietnam flew from the Citadel's 180-foot flagpole during a three week occupation. The outer walls, enclosing a 2-square mile area, still stand, along with their ten imposing gateways, but only few of the buildings survive.
What Hue retains in abundance, however, is atmosphere, and despite the grey skies and pervasive damp, I was charmed by the city. The wide, tree-lined avenues, grey, slow-flowing river, long moated walls and imperial-style food combined to produce a sense of gentle melancholy, echoes of empire lost. About that food... Hue has long been known for good food, both for vegetarian food and for elaborate dishes for the court. I indulged in one meal at Tinh Gia Vien, a house owned by a descendent of the imperial family, where the presentation was almost more important than the food -- although that was also good. One dish featured a carved pineapple containing a candle, and dessert arrived in a little dish on the back of a dragon.
Unfortunately, charm could not salvage my last day in Hue, spent visiting assorted royal tombs and pagodas by tour boat. The boat did keep out the rain, but it was cold, and we ate lunch (surprisingly good) sitting on the wooden floor. Several of the tombs were some distance from the river, necessitating motorbike rides -- in rain and mud. The high point for me was meeting two retired French-Canadian nurses, traveling round the world. I enjoyed their company, and would meet them again in Da Nang and Hoi An.
Da Nang was known during the Vietnamese-American war as the way-station for GIs headed for R&R on beaches such as My Khe and China Beach, and became infamous in 1975 as thousands died trying to escape the advancing North Vietnamese by boat and plane. I wasn't there for the beaches, I was there solely to see the Cham museum, although I found an unexpected bonus -- Da Nang was the least touristed town I visited in Vietnam. The only real sight is the museum, which can be visited on a day trip from over-popular Hoi An, but the town itself is a sight -- a busy Vietnamese city that largely ignores its few tourists. Motorbike taxi riders may still pester you, vendors call out to tourists -- as they do to locals, but otherwise the most interest I encountered was from school children eager to practice their English -- even those leaving the Japanese language school.
Why the museum in Da Nang? Because it is said to have one of the best collections of Champa art anywhere. Captivated by over 300 sandstone sculptures displayed in open galleries built by the French in 1915, I could believe it. The Champa Kingdom ruled central Vietnam from the end of the second century C.E. to the seventeenth century and both its art and religion were heavily influenced by India. Worship of the goddess Uroja (the "country's mother"), Buddhism and Hinduism (especially worship of Shiva) all coexisted. Despite obvious Indian influences, I found many of the statues quite distinctive, some sinuous, some almost humorous, some decorated with a row of breasts, Uroja's symbol. This is definitely a case where a picture is worth more than words, so I recommend taking a look at the Musee Cham site -- ignore the French, just click on the museum map and make sure you investigate the unique mythical animals in the Thap Mam section.
Lonely Planet called Hoi An, an hour's drive south of Da Nang, a "picturesque and enchanting river port," whose "magnificent collection of almost 850 older structures and intact streetscapes just beg to be explored." What the explorer will actually discover are streets crammed with shops and shoppers. The principle commodity is tailor-made clothes -- often tailor-made the day they are ordered -- but shoes and paintings are also well represented. Despite the pagodas and old houses, the charm I had expected was missing.
Hoi An has also introduced an annoying ticketing system, with each ticket giving access to one of five different types of sight. Those wishing to visit two merchant's houses thus have to buy two tickets, even though they have not used all of the first. At the merchant house I visited I learned that originally goods came in at the back from the river, were stored in the central section, and were sold out the front -- the family lived upstairs. So, however little I might like the frenetic commerce in modern Hoi An, the town was in fact returning to its roots.
While Hoi An is not high on my list of towns to revisit, there were redeeming features. My hotel, on the river bank, with a terrace cafe outside my window overlooking the water. The Brother's Cafe, in a beautifully restored and landscaped house, also on the river bank, with equally exquisite food. A boat ride, in a small wooden boat with a woman pilot, as the clouds glowed pink and purple and the sky darkened to indigo. (The boat had neither lights nor lifejackets, but we made it back to the dock without mishap.)
The road wound through small towns and past rice paddies as distant hills gradually took shape and surrounded us. We stopped at a collection of outdoor cafes, and I walked to the ticket office at the end of the road, and then across a bamboo bridge to a jeep waiting to take me the last 3 kilometers. I climbed the final slope to stare awestruck at a collection of red stone temples. A pair of Japanese women with a guide arrived just before me, a British couple just after, but the site was big enough that I spent 90 minutes virtually alone with the ruins before the first of the tour buses arrived.
I can't imagine why the U.S. bombed My Son, but fortunately some buildings survived the bombs and the centuries of neglect. Some efforts are underway to clear the encroaching greenery from the mortarless blocks, and almost all the statues have been removed -- either to Da Nang or to a small museum inside one of the temples. Carving remains on some of the buildings, as do scattered lingams, but it is the size of the buildings and the scale of the site that impress. I was aware, however, that I would have had a very different experience if I had arrived with a crowd of people, instead of wandering through the trees on my own to "discover" each group of temples and stand alone inside the sanctuaries to feel the silence around me.
Thanks to the vagaries of history and the ebb and flow of power, Vietnam is an odd shape. The northern section around Hanoi, won from Chinese control, is joined to the southern highlands and the Mekong delta near Saigon, partly won from the Cambodians, by a narrow spine of land separating Lao from the South China Sea. At its narrowest the country is only 30 miles wide, which is why the Ho Chi Minh Trail detoured though Lao territory.
In these more peaceful times, a trail still connects Hanoi and Saigon, but it stays within Vietnam. Both the railway and National Highway 1 follow the same path down the narrow spine. And so do the tourists, stopping off at the same oases on the way.
Operators such as Sinh Cafe run daily "open tour" buses along NH1, with overnight stops at Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang and Dalat, and a detour to the rapidly-growing beach resort of Mui Ne. Tickets can be bought for the whole trip, or any segment, for any day: generally a phone call reserves a place on the next day's bus. With prices for the whole 1,000-plus miles from Hanoi to Saigon at under $30, it's hardly surprising that the buses are full of backpackers. As are the towns where they stay.
Of course, for that price there are some downsides. The operator will try to get you to stay at associated hotels, and will generally refuse to drop you anywhere else. Despite claims that the tour bus will pick you up from your hotel, you are just as likely to be collected by a motorbike, up to an hour before departure time. If you book with Brother's Cafe, you have to reserve space in person instead of by phone, and you may find that there is no bus available on the day you want to travel. (Being willing lose face I lost my temper over this, and was transferred to a Sinh Cafe bus for the Hoi An-Nha Trang leg.) The biggest problem, however, is that you travel with foreigners rather than locals -- many of the passengers seem to be sleeping off the previous night's party. I took the bus south from Hoi An, because it was the easiest way to reach Mui Ne. Next time I'll take the train.
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