|
The bus to Hue leaves from the Hanoi Tourism Service Company office in Luong Van Can street a 8.00pm. There are only a few other Vietnamese passengers. Most are foreign tourists from various countries, many of them from France. The ancient capital is a priority destination for French visitors to Vietnam who account for nearly 30 per cent of all foreign visitors to Hue. This will be my first trip to Hue. I'm excited because I've read a lot about the city of romance and long dreamed of visiting. Now it's just I3 hours away. But I'm also feeling a little anxious. My old girlfriend lives in Hue and I want to see , again. We spent two years together at the same college in Hanoi, but that was six years ago. Even today I still don't understand why we separated. Maybe we were just too young. She returned to her home town and I haven't seen her since. Sitting near me are two French girls studying their Lonely Planet guidebook. Lorier and her friend have spent two weeks in Hanoi and several other destinations in the north and are now travelling to Hue before returning to France. "Before my trip I was afraid Hanoi might have become a modern Western-style city since I was last there," Lorier says. And the Hanoi of 2002 is not the same as it was in I993. New hotels and restaurants have appeared and much has changed. "I noticed the streets have become more crowded and dirty because there are so many motorcycles and so much construction going on. But overall, Hanoi is still itself The-old French-style architecture is still there," she adds. Lorier tells me how young people in France have become machines obsessed about losing their jobs. "It's funny," she says. "You are moving towards a modern lifestyle and values like ours while we are trying to discover yours." After a long night on the road we arrive in Hue at 9.00am. The Perfume river appears as a blue silk thread under the bright sun. Its water is wonderfully clean, and such a contrast to the half dozen badly polluted rivers in Hanoi which are now just open channels for wastewater. Hue is surely the most beautiful city in the country. The I3 emperors of the Nguyen Dynasty, the last feudal rulers of Vietnam, reigned here from I802 to I945. The remains of the Citadel and the splendid tombs of the Nguyen emperors are the main attractions of Hue. The imperial city is preparing for the Hue Festival 2002 to be held in May. This is not only the biggest event of the year for Hue but also for Vietnam's entire tourism industry. In recent months, programmes have been appearing on television, in local papers and on the Internet advertising the event. City authorities are trying to gain national recognition for Hue as the festival city. But there's lots to be done. The streets are dusty because of construction, and a project to build a sewage system has been delayed because of technical problems. Lack of hotels and direct international flights are other major constraints. Inside the Citadel people live peaceful lives. Their houses look just as they did decades ago. But the areas on the other side of the Perfume river look more modern, just like any other newly emerging tourist city in Vietnam. Internet shops, cafes, fast food outlets and bicycles rental places occupy most main street frontages. "This is just external. Hue people still maintain the same characteristics as their ancestors did two centuries ago, II says Nguyen Quoc Thanh, director of Thuan Hoa hotel, situated on Nguyen Tri Phuong street. "Traditional family values are strictly adhered to. It's because we are residents of the ancient capital and have many rules to abide by," Thanh adds. This was demonstrated to me when I noticed a group of well-dressed young people aged around twenty, all sitting on the pavement drinking. A beautiful girl was participating in the general high-jinks when suddenly an old man on a motorbike stopped nearby and shouted at her, telling her to go home and scolding her for creating a poor image of Hue for visitors. You also hear very little swearing and cursing in the streets, and Hue is a very safe city for foreign tourists. Like the directors of other hotels in the city, Thanh welcomes the Hue festival as a golden opportunity to boost tourism and enhance Hue's image. He says he had to upgrade his hotel, which was severely affected by the big flood in I999, to meet increased demand during the event. The Thuan Hoa is one of the few hotels in Hue which offer cheap rooms for foreign backpackers. Hue shuts down for the night much earlier than most tourist cities. By 9.00pm the streets were almost empty. A cyclo driver persuaded me to go to a "very cool place to taste Hue". I agreed and he took me to the banks of the river where several girls were standing under the shadow of old trees. Wooden boats illuminated by candlelight were waiting nearby. But I was suddenly overwhelmed by nameless sorrows and decided to return to the hotel. Although it was just 10.00pm the hotel's dancing bar, the only discotheque in Hue, was already closed. As it happens I didn't get to meet the old girlfriend. I went to her old address but her mother told me she was married and had moved away. I didn't try to find her. What would have been the point? To love and marry a girl from Hue is every Vietnamese man's dream, but I'd lost my chance.
 |
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
