...and hit the road towards Hue, which is about three hours' drive north, across some mountains. The drive was uneventful, although the driver's constant tooting on the horn to warn the millions of mopeds that we're coming up behind them gets a bit tiresome after a while. On arrival at the outskirts of Hue we were taken to see a museum which has collected together all the best surviving sculptures from the bombed holy site we visited yesterday. The statues aren't too interesting, but there were a number of lovely frangipani trees in the grounds, so I took this photo to use as a new wallpaper on my desktop.
A little further on we visited a completely over-the-top tomb/mausoleum which was built by the penultimate king of Vietnam, Khai Dinh, who died in 1925. He was gay, so his wife, the queen, was allowed to consort with another man (or men - not sure which!) in order to produce an heir. The king recognised the resulting baby boy as his heir, and that boy became the last king, ruling from 1925 until he was deposed by Ho Chi Minh in 1945. He went into exile and died in France in the 1990s. The tomb of Khai Dinh made him very unpopular with his people, not only because of the ostentation of the whole place...
...but because he insisted on using building materials such as concrete, which were not available in Vietnam and had to be imported from France at such huge cost that a 35% tax was imposed on the whole population to pay for it.
The tomb is protected by a mini terracotta army (actually a concrete army) and I took a liking to this little fellow...
We made one more stop before arriving at the hotel, and I was rather taken by the way the local shops display their incense...
Finally, we arrived at our hotel, where we will be staying for the next two nights. It's called La Residence and although there are two new wings at the back, the main building (where we are) was formerly the official residence of the French Governor during colonial days. We've fallen on our feet again because it is really lovely here. Once more, the photos taken by professionals for the website are better than I can do, so if you would like to see where we are, go to www.la-residence-hue.com and have a look. If you click on "accommodations" and scroll through the picture gallery of the rooms, you will eventually arrive at "Themed Colonial Suite - Monument d'Egypte" which is our room! It's huge (it's own entrance hall is bigger than most hotel rooms) and gorgeous.
That's all for now - I'm off to the bar!
Jenny's bit: Straight down to earth after the fab hotel by the beach, have just spent an hour ironing! Our guide in Saigon (Hai) was softly spoken and a stranger to consonants. Ahn, however, regardless of the fact that she is very small seems to have gone to the Hitler Youth school of guiding. Her consonants are terrifying and our day goes along the lines of "Here is beautiful pagoda, tek a foto!", "We will stop now, tek a foto!" Well, we probably need bucking up. Jx
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