Hue

Hue had the $$!t bombed out of it in the American war and there is a sense here, even though people are friendly, that memories are longer and the party line is more strictly followed - the taxi driver gently but firmly corrects my use of Saigon to the simply correct name, Ho Chi Minh City. There are still bullets in the citadel, a huge expanse of half renovated religious outhouses - antiquity melded once again with modernity; a relationship not explained via scholarship but by the thick slap of concrete on to anicent stone. It's an eerie, atmospheric place but its quick repair raises the question whether the party people are preserving heritage or exploiting tourist potential.

Nothing new here. Except the concrete.



The art deco hotel, La Residence, had more sympathetic restoration applied and it oozed history from its port-holes and elegant swimming pool. Here the highest ranking Southern Vietnamese General and his family were captured when the northerners pushed south. And from here we hired bikes and were quickly off the beaten track, countless hellos from kids running alongside and, strangely, a few salutes from old men in suits standing silently in fields as families toiled the ground. It was cold here, and wet. It was a such a wonderful contrast to the smog embrace of Saigon.



Kate's Vietnamese is progressing pretty well, she can string simple conversations together whereas I seem to fumble and remember just complaints and negatives. Not needed here. Back in Saigon, the big city thing always kicks in but my phrases are out of place here. I guess being on the bikes, cutting away from the main streets and pedaling through a jungled,jumbled mix of sub-tropical and temperate trees; skirting proudly concreted homes where the owners stretch out in front of newly purchased TVs and then resting at an old temple with weeds growing out of the tiles, all of this has been an exercise not just for the body but for a sense of openness, a reminder not to let noise drown out silence; not to let stress batter peace senseless.