Closing the circle – Hué

Hanoi-Hué, nearly 1,000 Km of distance by train, around 11 hours in sleeping carriage, that brought us to the centre of Vietnam to what once was the capital of Vietnam during the Nguyen dynasty, until 1945. Hué was heavily bombed, abandoned by the communist regime of Hanoi for representing the extravagance of the monarchy, recovered later as a tourism attraction and now world heritage site.
Visiting the city we met Lac Thanh, a deaf-mute restaurant owner, and Muoi, meaning literally “Ten”, the tenth child of a family of the area (I imagine that when you have ten children you may be a bit short of imagination for names!). The hand signs of Mr. Lac and the rudimentary English of Muoi were perfect guides to the pantheons, city walls, buildings, temples, Perfume River, and rice fields that flood the area.
Maybe motorbike is not a bad mean of transport to help us closing the circle after all….