Had a walk from An Cuu Market to Bach Dang embankment and back through the fortress; refreshing 8 km.
Crossed the downtown without a single photograph but a river gilded by sunset made me take the camera out of the backpack.
A tour boat, one of many, on the Perfume River...
I've heard this exotic name in Kubrick's Full-Metal Jacket for the first time in my life. Right before the Mickey Mouse song, Joker says: "We have nailed our names in the pages of history enough for today. We hump down to the Perfume River to set in for the night"; American marines are marching with the burning city in the background - that's Hue City burning.
Right on these streets, there was bloody battle in 1968: Vietnamese communists attacked and partly occupied Hue but eventually failed to hold it. According to Wiki, 452 Southern Vietnamese soldiers and 216 Americans were killed; the communists lost several thousand soldiers and executed thousands of Vietnamese civilians and prisoners of war during the massacre of Hue.
Hard to believe all this happened in this beautiful peaceful city.
The building above has a sign 1924 at the top, so it witnessed that sad time, and survived it. And this one, too:
But today these streets are all about calm and peace.
You won't get to a bright future if you focus on the dark times of the past. Probably, that's the conclusion the Vietnamese have made. So let's focus on the present, too.
Bare trees remind an ink drawing.
Modern townhouses are reflected in the ancient canal.
A motorbike in a narrow alley blinds the eyes.
The evening city is filled with lights from shop signs and vehicles.
Đông Ba River is decorated with majestic banyan trees.
A fantastic tree on my way:
It might have been a sapling in 1968. What can the life of a sprout mean when hundreds of people are dying all around? But look at this stunner after half a century.
Another banyan, enveloping a building in disrepair.
A gate of the city wall, functioning as a major transport artery as in 1968 or two centuries ago:
And an ancient moat:
Old constructions that have seen a lot.
It was around 7 p.m. when I was crossing Phu Xuan Bridge over the Perfume River. Felt tired much, needed to buy some groceries, and thought about good rest at the homestay.
More Southeast Asian stories to come, stay tuned! Check out my previous posts on my personal Worldmappin map.
I took these images with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 on January 24, 2025, in Hue, Vietnam.