It need hardly be said that if the Vietnamese imperial court found few sources of laughter during the normal course of a reign, they found even fewer around the emtombment of their emperors. These tombs took years to construct, often more than a decade, and it was a frequent pass time of the emperors to be carried out to the construction site on his palanquin to relax on the grounds and see how the construction was coming. There are three emperor's tombs in Hue', and I felt it was necessary to visit them to understand the whole scope of imperial culture. Barbara disagreed, so she took the 8 am bus to our next destination, the artsy beach resort of Hoi An. I took the 1:30 pm bus, giving me time to visit two tombs. I was told that two of the three were pretty similar, so I elected to visit two different ones.
First we visited the tomb of Khai Dinh, who reigned from 1916 until 1925, which was said to be influenced by French design. The French were, of course, the colonial power, but they kept the emperors going with all their ceremony and prestige as a way to strengthen their control. I had seen photos of this young emperor at the Citadel, always unsmiling, and he was perfectly recognizable in the slightly larger than life size sculpted effigies of him in his tomb.
But first the approach. One climbs a steep stairway flanked by stone dragons, up to the first level, where there is a small temple with inscritions in Chinese characters in the middle of a broad terrace. On either side of the terrace are two rows of stone figures, venerable court officials in front and soldiers or laborers behind, shorter and wearing conical hats. At one end of a row on each side is a stone elephant, about 6 feet tall. Another set of stairways leads up to a second terrace, from which the tomb itself, a traditional Chinese ceremonial building, with pagoda roof and embellished with elaborate dragon motifs in coarse mosaic that stand out from the corners of the roof.
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One enters the tomb building, a kind of temple, from the right side. A souvenir stand is immediately on the right, and signs forbid photography, but no one pays any attention to them. People are snapping the point-and-shoots and cell phone cameras everywhere. The place is dazzling: completely covered in colorful ceramic, with ceramic furnishings. In the center is a chest with a number of objects, presumably dear to the emperor, on them, and a standing 1.5 scale of the emperor.
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The room to the rear is even more spectacular: a full larger-than-life effigy in gold of the young emperor on his throne--with the exact same blank--or serenissime--expression. The throne is also in gold, and the covered dias is in polychrome ceramic. A side room displays photographs of the emperor's reign and the progress of his funeral procession through the town. Glassed in display cases exhibit the fine Limoges painted vases that were part of his household--gifts of France. Their are large portraits of the emperor, both photographic and painted on the wall. The atmosphere is charged with the richness of the decor.
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I was back in the car within five minutes of leaving the shrine room. On the way to the second tomb, that of Emperor To Duc, who ruled from 1847 to 1883, we passed a devotional statue shop, and I had the driver stop. Its products consisted of about 20% Buddhas and the rest Christian--standing Jesuses, heads of Mary, Last Suppers. Some of them were face down on the ground, so you could see the image(s) in reverse.
Before reaching the main tomb area there was a walled-in temple dedicated to the "supporting" women of To Duc's reign, namely his concubines and secondary wives. It was a touching gesture, except that it's rather modest and in a state of disrepair. It had some lovely tile work, especially on the floor, and I was just beginning to understand that To Duc's tomb is best appreciated as a semi-ruin, with its weathered and cracked walls. Since I had seen Khai Dinh's much later and French financed tomb first, I had to adjust my expectations downward to appreciate the aesthetic of To Duc's tomb (which is closer to town, so we visited it second).
The tomb area itself was up several series of steps and surrounded by two rectangular walls The tomb itself is quite simple, in the innermost enclosure, fronted by a thick stone with Chinese characters on it. I went in. The emperor's remains lie in a simple stone sarcophagus. There are no effigies. I was surprised at how unpretentious it was. Here's where I began to appreciate the weathering pattern on the wall.
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On the way down from the tomb area towards the moat system there was a pair of stone elephants; there was also a kind of memory building with artifacts from To Duc's reign.
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I left the tomb area and made a circuit of the grounds, going around the meandering lily-lotus moat-pond. Back towards the entrance I came upon a small enclosed shrine with yellow and black butterflies flitting around it. With a little patience I managed to capture one of them.
Heading back to the hotel I asked my driver to stop by a cemetery I noticed along the road. I spent 20 minutes wandering through the burdock and tall grass to photograph some stunning graves in the Buddhist tradition, many with large stone lotuses as their centerpiece, and some rather elaborate ones, including a pagoda.
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The hotel we had stayed in, the Camellia, had given us superior service, and I felt very warm towards Jack, our waiter for the Imperial dinner, and Daisy, the young house manager. Jack had taken me to the roof, where I thought I could set up my overnight-to-dawn photo series, but he said it was too uncertain to leave my camera there, so I ended up doing it from the balcony of our room. Daisy and I got into a brief discussion about history, comparing Ho Chi Minh to Mao and Stalin, and finding him the only sane one of the group--leaving Vietnam a happy, stable country. Of course, there are other factors as well, but he shepherded this small colonized country through almost four decades of struggle against colonialist powers, until his death in September, 1969, when he was lionized by the progressive world. I compared him to Gandhi, and addressed the question of why Gandhi could succeed with non-violent means, whereas Ho Chi Minh had to use violence to free his people. She had never heard of Gandhi, so I took out my remaining Indian money and showed her his picture. She hadn't heard of Martin Luther King either, so I wrote them both down for her to look up on the web.
I booked a bus ride to Hoi An, our other stop in central Vietnam, which left at 1:30. As I got on the bus I was asked to take off my boots, which the driver put into a plastic bag. The "seats" were all reclining beds, with a little tray for drinks and a hole under the seat in front for your feat and baggage. I had seat #26, an upper berth, and since the lower was was vacant, I put some of my carry on down there, with the rest stowed in the outside luggage compartment. I soon discovered I could raise my seat back to a sitting position, where I managed to get some blog writing done. The route took us along the coast, and I caught some glimpses of some beautiful scenery.
Arriving in Hoi An at 5:30, the only transportation to my hotel was on motor scooter. I was skeptical that my overstuffed 28-inch duffle and my 25-inch photo equipment case could be accommodated by a moter bike, but both the driver and another man who seemed to be regulating the transportation kept saying "no problem, no problem," that I decided to try it. I wore my backpack, and put my camera and food bag on my lap. We were the Vaia Boutique Hotel in 10 minutes, for which I was charged 100,000 VND, which I thought was high, but since it was less than $5 for this balancing act, I didn't complain. No tip, though.
First we visited the tomb of Khai Dinh, who reigned from 1916 until 1925, which was said to be influenced by French design. The French were, of course, the colonial power, but they kept the emperors going with all their ceremony and prestige as a way to strengthen their control. I had seen photos of this young emperor at the Citadel, always unsmiling, and he was perfectly recognizable in the slightly larger than life size sculpted effigies of him in his tomb.
But first the approach. One climbs a steep stairway flanked by stone dragons, up to the first level, where there is a small temple with inscritions in Chinese characters in the middle of a broad terrace. On either side of the terrace are two rows of stone figures, venerable court officials in front and soldiers or laborers behind, shorter and wearing conical hats. At one end of a row on each side is a stone elephant, about 6 feet tall. Another set of stairways leads up to a second terrace, from which the tomb itself, a traditional Chinese ceremonial building, with pagoda roof and embellished with elaborate dragon motifs in coarse mosaic that stand out from the corners of the roof.
One enters the tomb building, a kind of temple, from the right side. A souvenir stand is immediately on the right, and signs forbid photography, but no one pays any attention to them. People are snapping the point-and-shoots and cell phone cameras everywhere. The place is dazzling: completely covered in colorful ceramic, with ceramic furnishings. In the center is a chest with a number of objects, presumably dear to the emperor, on them, and a standing 1.5 scale of the emperor.
The room to the rear is even more spectacular: a full larger-than-life effigy in gold of the young emperor on his throne--with the exact same blank--or serenissime--expression. The throne is also in gold, and the covered dias is in polychrome ceramic. A side room displays photographs of the emperor's reign and the progress of his funeral procession through the town. Glassed in display cases exhibit the fine Limoges painted vases that were part of his household--gifts of France. Their are large portraits of the emperor, both photographic and painted on the wall. The atmosphere is charged with the richness of the decor.
I was back in the car within five minutes of leaving the shrine room. On the way to the second tomb, that of Emperor To Duc, who ruled from 1847 to 1883, we passed a devotional statue shop, and I had the driver stop. Its products consisted of about 20% Buddhas and the rest Christian--standing Jesuses, heads of Mary, Last Suppers. Some of them were face down on the ground, so you could see the image(s) in reverse.
On the way to To Duc's tomb my driver proposed a stop at an incense shop where incense was made. I agreed. We arrived at a village in which at least half the shops had large multi-colored displays of incense by the road--these are covered shops but not inside buildings. It was one more marketing stop, of course, but I was curious to see how incense is made. The aromatic substance is ground into a powder then mixed with glue and while still pliable, rolled tightly around a thin stick with a flat wooden board that has a grip attached, about the size of a trowel. There was also a woman there sewing the traditional conical hat.
The entry way to To Duc's tomb is a Chinese style gate. Inside one immediately sees the lily and lotus filled curving moat. This tomb is elaborately landscaped and described in the tourist literature as the perfect melding of nature and architecture, which made me expect more than I found. It does not reach the level of the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, but to be fair, this was probably pretty good for a relative backwater like Cochinchina in the late 19th Century.
The tomb area itself was up several series of steps and surrounded by two rectangular walls The tomb itself is quite simple, in the innermost enclosure, fronted by a thick stone with Chinese characters on it. I went in. The emperor's remains lie in a simple stone sarcophagus. There are no effigies. I was surprised at how unpretentious it was. Here's where I began to appreciate the weathering pattern on the wall.
I left the tomb area and made a circuit of the grounds, going around the meandering lily-lotus moat-pond. Back towards the entrance I came upon a small enclosed shrine with yellow and black butterflies flitting around it. With a little patience I managed to capture one of them.
Heading back to the hotel I asked my driver to stop by a cemetery I noticed along the road. I spent 20 minutes wandering through the burdock and tall grass to photograph some stunning graves in the Buddhist tradition, many with large stone lotuses as their centerpiece, and some rather elaborate ones, including a pagoda.
The hotel we had stayed in, the Camellia, had given us superior service, and I felt very warm towards Jack, our waiter for the Imperial dinner, and Daisy, the young house manager. Jack had taken me to the roof, where I thought I could set up my overnight-to-dawn photo series, but he said it was too uncertain to leave my camera there, so I ended up doing it from the balcony of our room. Daisy and I got into a brief discussion about history, comparing Ho Chi Minh to Mao and Stalin, and finding him the only sane one of the group--leaving Vietnam a happy, stable country. Of course, there are other factors as well, but he shepherded this small colonized country through almost four decades of struggle against colonialist powers, until his death in September, 1969, when he was lionized by the progressive world. I compared him to Gandhi, and addressed the question of why Gandhi could succeed with non-violent means, whereas Ho Chi Minh had to use violence to free his people. She had never heard of Gandhi, so I took out my remaining Indian money and showed her his picture. She hadn't heard of Martin Luther King either, so I wrote them both down for her to look up on the web.
I booked a bus ride to Hoi An, our other stop in central Vietnam, which left at 1:30. As I got on the bus I was asked to take off my boots, which the driver put into a plastic bag. The "seats" were all reclining beds, with a little tray for drinks and a hole under the seat in front for your feat and baggage. I had seat #26, an upper berth, and since the lower was was vacant, I put some of my carry on down there, with the rest stowed in the outside luggage compartment. I soon discovered I could raise my seat back to a sitting position, where I managed to get some blog writing done. The route took us along the coast, and I caught some glimpses of some beautiful scenery.
Arriving in Hoi An at 5:30, the only transportation to my hotel was on motor scooter. I was skeptical that my overstuffed 28-inch duffle and my 25-inch photo equipment case could be accommodated by a moter bike, but both the driver and another man who seemed to be regulating the transportation kept saying "no problem, no problem," that I decided to try it. I wore my backpack, and put my camera and food bag on my lap. We were the Vaia Boutique Hotel in 10 minutes, for which I was charged 100,000 VND, which I thought was high, but since it was less than $5 for this balancing act, I didn't complain. No tip, though.
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