Hue is a small town in the middle of Vietnam with many amazing buildings and tombs. We took photos until the camera gave in.
Taking photos until the camera gave in is not an overstatement. The rainy season came late to Vietnam and we got to see the end of it. It was wet. Very wet.
In my opinion a camera is a tool to take photos, and if it’s too bad weather to bring the camera out, then you will not get any photos anyway. My beloved D7000 was therefore exposed to Vietnam’s rain, something that was probably not the best idea in the world. At the same time it has seen a lot worse before: Repeatedly exposed to rain in Stavanger, sea spray and sub zero desires in Svalbard, not to mention being left for 15 minutes in the rain in Pohnpei, the world’s 6th wettest place. Still, the weather in Hue was what was going to kill it, but before the camera gave in we managed to recover the photos.
Back to Hue. As mentioned it is a city in Vietnam and is pronounced like “huey”, or like saying “hey” with an extra u in the middle. However, it is not pronounced as the colour property, although this gave the inspiration for the title of this post, which we, with a bit of geeky photography humor, find quite funny.
The highlight of the city is a large area surrounded by a long moat named Imperial Citadel. Here the emperor of Vietnam ruled until Ho Chi Minh took power. It was common to build tombs for oneself as an emperor, but unlike usual tombs the ones in Vietnam were a place to live after death. Therefore the tombs were huge palaces and amazing buildings. On top of this, Vietnam as for some time under the rule of France and the emperors did not have much better things to do than to build their tombs. To site Wikivoyage: “[...] when the emperors had been reduced to figureheads under French colonial rule and had little else to do than build themselves elaborate tombs“.
Among the tombs are two of the most famous ones belonging to the emperors Minh Mang og Khai Dinh.
The first is a fantastic combination of vast ponds and large buildings stretching in between them.
The second tomb, for Khai Dinh, has no ponds, although some temporary ones were created by the rain while we were there… Because the camera stopped working we have a limited amount of photos from here.
Three days later the camera magically came to life again. Some buttons are still not working properly, but apart from this all is good. From now on I’ll take better care of the camera!
Aww, man! It is wet again already…
Finally, here’s a fun hyperlapse we made in Imperial Citadel, in colour for a change.
