Huế, Vietnam. Shifting back into tourist mode has been a bit jarring for me. I had gotten so used to my routine--waking up at ungodly hours to load the boat, diving until midday, lending a hand at the dive shop in the afternoon, teaching English at night, hitting the sack early, rinse and repeat--that the days now seem rather long and empty. I have to admit that I have not been overly enthused about the touristy happenings around Huế, though I will admit to childish enjoyment while pronouncing it: HOO-eh. Like a Canadian owl.
There is nothing inherently wrong with Huế. It is yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site, rife with ancient things of historical importance, and blah, blah, blah. The city is a bit of a jigsaw puzzle. Surrounded by modern buildings stands a massive walled Citadel, inside of which sits a walled Imperial City, inside of which reveals the walls of the Forbidden Purple City, so named due to its--I am making an assumption based on visual evidence--complete and total exclusion of the color purple. The city is the architectual equivilent of a Russian matryoshka doll. And since anything Russian is evil, we completly bombed the shit out of the place during the war, despite its location south of the DMZ. What a mess. And all this due to an errant conversation involving a child's Tonka toy sinking in the bathtub. (Sigh)
The Imperial City is actually quite striking, so I my interest in history may just be waning. There's just too damn much of it. Maybe I was just tired. Regardless, a great deal of restoration work was going on inside of the Citadel. Scaffolding covered many of the building, others were fully restored, as good as new, and I got to thinking. Let me pose a philosophical question here, if I may. At what point does restoration work become so extensive as to no longer be productive in its aims? Can excessive restoration work diminish the historical significance of its subject? Are we interested in a Huế that is frozen in time, a Disney-esque theme park, replete with costumed characters and musical numbers? Or would we prefer it splintered and broken, a tragic reminder of...um...not to forget the, uh....oh fuck it, lets just bomb Iraq.
Current Region of Travel: Antarctica
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About Me
- The Wanderer
- In March of 2005, a young and beardless man left behind his job and hit the road in search of adventure. And lo, he had many glorious European adventures, and learned much about objects of historial significane and the terminal number of hours one can physically restrain a full bladder on a long distance bus ride. Upon returning to the States, and ill content to settle back in the day-to-day drudgery of the business world, The Wanderer abandoned his apartment, divested himself of many of his prized possessions (read: collection of belly lint), and dragged his sometimes travel companion Xander into the untamed wilds of West Africa. That was a bad idea. After four months of eating sun-baked goat and pondering the complex socio-politic situation of near military coups, The Wanderer returned home, where he was poked and prodded by doctors for an entire year. Now, bearded, overweight, and with a few less brain cells, The Wanderer spends his days (and too many nights) selling extremely heavy objects online. So, once again, with irrational yet exuberant gusto, The Wanderer has decided to continue his travels. To Southeast Asia we go!
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