(1) waking up at 4:30 with the Vietnamese dawn and the vietnamese rush of constant motorbike honking.
(2) Joining Truc and Van for a breakfast of iced coffee and bread overlooking a river.
(3) Joining Zane, Khanh, Su, and Su's cousin for a breakfast of... something wrapped in banana leaves. Zane is not here to tell me what it was. Truc and Van had proceeded to the citadel.
(4) Exploring the imperial citadel in Hue.
(5) Having lunch at a riverside restaurant.
(6) Going several miles outside of Hue to some tombs on a xe om, along roads that devolved into gravel and mud paths, through a medium to heavy rain.
(7) Exploring the tomb with Zane, Khanh, Su, and Su's cousin.
(8) Heading to Su's uncle's house for a vietnamese home cooked meal.
(9) Learning to play Chinese chess in the back courtyard of Su's uncle's house.
Our first destination (after pre-breakast and breakfast) was the imperial citadel in Hue. The citdel is a sprawling complex originally surrounded by a series of moats. The town has encroached up to the final moat, but the final moat still contains a couple of square miles of buildings. I'm not exaggerating this - we didn't explore anywhere near the entire place. Most of it was destroyed in the wars, so much of it is merely empty ground surrounded by walls. Efforts have been underway to reconstruct much of the palace (as seen in some of the newer, shinier buildings pictured below).
This is what many of the places behind the walls looked like. Often, you can see overgrown foundations or ruins.
Su climbing into the people cooking pot. We were told that this pot was used to torture people who the emperor was angry at.
Su in one of the citadel buildings.
Su's cousin in one of the citadel buildings.
After exploring the palace, we went to a riverside restaurant for Zane to cross baby clams off of his list. There is probably a more nuanced description than that, but I can't recall it.
Anyway, while there, we were entertained by a puppy running around the premises. He was playing tug of war with my bag, and eventually Khanh picked him up.
We next proceeded to a tomb of the second king of the Nguyen dynasty. This guy apparently ruled with an iron fist, and also had a hundred children. The tombs had a series of buildings leading to the actual burial site (which is only opened once a year).
Lilypads!
This is a building on the grounds of one of the tombs we visited.
Behind the closed gate is the emperor's actual burial site.
We ended the day with a meal at Su's uncle's house. The original plan was for us to help cook the meal. However, we spent so much time at the tomb that we were late in getting back.
I may have committed a faux pas - one of the dishes (that I did not take a picture of) was a noodle soup with various chunks of meat in it (pork, I think). I ate the noodles, the brother, and the meat with gusto. However, I did not eat the chunks of fat of varying sizes. Chunks of fat as big as a golf ball are not terribly appealing to me. Khanh explained the situation, and the family did not seem to mind, aside from the initial comment on my restraint.
The second floor of the house is devoted to a memorial room that is a mix of buddhism and confucianism. There are two shrines in an alcove, one behind the other. The front one is a shrine to the buddha, the back had pictures of three ancestors on it. Khanh told us that Su's uncle's family had, for the most part, emigrated to the US. One reason he had to stay behind, however, was because, as eldest son, it was his responsibility to keep the shrine / honor the ancestors.
We ended the night by learning how to play Chinese chess in their courtyard. I had never played before, but Zane had some grasp of the rules. The scene: Charlie sitting with the pieces in front of him, Zane to his left, and Khanh across the board. Su's uncle, in rapid Vietnamese, picking up pieces and explaining their rules. Charlie gradually understanding the basics (though it required Khanh's translation to nail down some of the more complicated rules). It parallels pretty closely with chess, but the differences are enough to make it confounding. Eventually, we were able to figure out (mostly) the rules of the game (the biggest hangup was probably the knight. It moves 2-1, as in Chess. However, if there's a piece adjacent to it in the direction of the 2 move, then it can't move to the square it wants. Also, Bishops have a limits of 2 spaces, and can't cross the middle of the board). Further confusing matters is the fact that the pieces are circles, with chinese characters on them. Often, even later in the game, I had to remind myself which was the cannon, the elephant, and the warrior.
Zane and I, working together, managed to defeat Su's 17 year old cousin, who spent much of the game (during our embarassingly long turns) texting.
It is not my proudest victory.
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