The Imperial City

On Dec. 22, less than one week after traveling nearly 30 hours to move our life from D.C. to Hanoi, we returned to Hanoi's Noi Bai airport to board another flight, this time bound for Central Vietnam. A merciful 45 minutes later, our plane touched down in Danang, where we would start the scenic train journey to Hue. After a brief detour to the Danang bus station and an attempt at drawing a train station for our irate (and possibly intoxicated) taxi driver, we made it to the nha ga (from the French gare) just in time for the next Hue-bound train. The train took three times as long as the flight but the tracks hugged the coastline nearly the entire journey, so the view as we chugged along the East Vietnam Sea was simply stunning.

By the time we arrived, evening had begun its descent and from the taxi window, we could just make out the outlines of the citadel across the Perfume River. My parents arrived to Bangkok later that evening and over the next couple days, we made our way through the Imperial City's Forbidden Purple City in pouring rain, explored a few tombs of the Nguyen Dynasty (the last ruling Vietnamese dynasty) and visited a monastery built by Vietnamese monk Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh. Below are a few pictures of the incredible grounds of the tombs (Tu Duc, Khai Dinh, Minh Mang) as well as interesting architectural flourishes of the tomb buildings and the monastery.

Tomorrow's post will feature information about where we stayed, what we ate and more of what we saw in Hue.