Hue and Hoi An

Happy New Years!

For those of you who don't know, Chinese and Vietnamese New Years, aka 'Tet' in Vietnam was February 7th this year. The new year here is the year 2008, but I can't figure out why its the same year as on the Western calender, and no one understands what I'm asking here when I try to find out. Does anyone know? Tell me if you do. We arrived in Hue, the former capital of Veitman, the morning of the sixth, and visited the remains of the citadel's imperial enclosure. What was left was quite impressive Hue was the sight of heavy fighting during the Vietnam/American war, and much of the citadel was destoyed.

That evening, we went to check out the News years concert and fireworks show. The concert, included a dubious Salsa dance number followed by an only slightly better hiphop segment. The fireworks were surprisinglly well done. However, in Veitnam, you can go much closer to the fireworks than you can in Canada, and this turns out not tobe a good thing. Firstly, it starts to hurt your neck to look more or less dierectly upwards for fifteen minutes. Secondly, the smelly smoke falling from the fireworks gets so thick it starts to obscure the view, never mind your breathing. And lastly, dodging the falling fireworks casings can be distracting. Most don't hurt much when they hit you, but Nika was lucky enough to get beaned by a nice big chunk :-).

Tet is a family affair in Vietnam, celebrated in a manner more similar to Christmas than to North American New Years. We expected to spend a quiet day in our Hotel. However, our hotel held a Dragon dance early in the morning that we got up to see. Following that, we went to visit Phung and Hue and meet their family. Phung is an artist that Nika started talking to at the citadel, and Hue is his wife, who is also an artist. He invited us to his house for Tet. We went and hung out with his family, and then they took us on motos to visit a couple pagodas and pray. Finally, in the afternoon, we went on another motercycle tour of another agoda and three roal tmobs. So much for a quiet day in the hotel.

On the third day, we did a tour of the 'Demilitarized' zone, the border between NOrth and South Vietnam during the American war. The villagers here had to build and live in underground tunnels to escape constant American Bombardments. Below is a picture of a shelter set up in case one was caught away from the tunnels as shelling started.

Incidently, if anyone is looking for avacation destination in June, central Vietnam would be a great location. The semi-annual (or bi-annual, whichever one means every other year) festival Hue is from June 3-11, I think. If you could co-ordinate it with the monthly festival Hoi An, which takes place on the 14th of the lunar month, you would be sitting pretty.

From Hue, we moved to Hoi An, know for its heritage buildings and tailors. Hoi is a lovely place to vist, but not so good to visit if you are on a tight budget. We have been spending our Dong like nobody's business. HOwever, amongst other things, I do have a custom made suit to show for it.

While Hoi An is quite picturesque, it will be awhile before I can post pictures as I am travelling to the rural areas of the central highlands the day after tommorow, so I will probably not post any pictures.