HUE DAY2

Monday, September 19, 2011
Hue, Vietnam
Battle with pronunciation continued. In Hoi An I tried to order Pho with no success, the guy was puzzled and obviously couldn't understand my Aussie-Viet accent so I wrote it down. See photo. He said Ahhhh and added the squiggles to it as if now I would understand how to say it. And to set it all straight.....http://www.lovingpho.com/pho-opinion-editorial/how-to-pronounce-pho/

Hue has many resonances with the American war, it was virtually taken over by the VietCong in 1968 and only recovered after a month of heavy fighting . The last part of the city to fall to South Viet and American forces was the Citadel the ancient home of the Emperors which was built in the 1800's.
We hired three cyclo's to take us there and back for the princely sum of 15.000 each way and well spent it was as they kept up running comments all the way there and back. I'm getting sick of saying how hot it was but this was special. I bought a conical hat to try to keep some semblance of my pale complexion unharmed. The palace itself was stunning in its gilded splendour and hard to believe that a lot of it was missing, destroyed in the bombing when it was taken from the Viet Cong. Bullet marks can still be seen pockmarking the ancient stones. Very few signs of the war still exist. The Vietnamese have destroyed just about any sign that the Americans or Australians were here. The soldiers who fought here underwent some of the most horrible conditions anyone could endure. Today brought it home to us what our soldiers went through. Us tourists find it hard to walk around in the overpowering heat and humidity carrying our shoulder bags and the soldiers were encumbered with packs, weapons and were being shot at.

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