Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [212]
The citadel’s massive, ten-kilometre-long perimeter wall has survived intact, as has its most prominent feature, the flag tower, or Cot Co (also known as Ky Dai, “the King’s Knight”), which dominates the southern battlements. The tower is in fact three squat, brick terraces topped with a flagpole first erected in 1807, where the yellow-starred Viet Cong flag flew briefly during the 1968 Tet Offensive. Ten gates pierce the citadel wall: enter through Ngan Gate, east of the flag tower, to find a parade ground flanked by the nine sacred cannons, which were cast in the early nineteenth century in bronze seized from the Tay Son army. The cannons represent the four seasons and five ritual elements (earth, fire, metal, wood and water); originally they stood in front of Ngo Mon Gate, symbolizing the citadel’s guardian spirits.
The central provinces | Hué | The citadel |
The Imperial City
A second moat and defensive wall inside the citadel guard the Imperial City (7am–5pm; 55,000đ), which follows the same symmetrical layout about a north–south axis as Beijing’s Forbidden City. The city, popularly known as Dai Noi (“the Great Enclosure”), has four gates – one in each wall – though by far the most impressive is south-facing Ngo Mon, the Imperial City’s principal entrance. In its heyday the complex must have been truly awe-inspiring, a place of glazed yellow and green roof tiles, pavilions of rich red and gilded lacquer, and lotus-filled ponds – all surveyed by the emperor with his entourage of haughty mandarins. However, many of its buildings were badly neglected even before the battle for Hué raged through the Imperial City during Tet 1968, and by 1975 a mere twenty out of the original 148 were left standing among the vegetable plots. Some are in the midst of extensive restorations, and those which have been completed, notably Thai Hoa Palace and the The Mieu complex, are stunning. Among the others, the charming Thai Binh Reading Pavilion and a pair of octagonal music pavilions are less formal mementoes of the dynasty. The rest of the Imperial City, especially its northern sector, is a grassed-over expanse full of birds and butterflies where you can still make out foundations and find bullet pockmarks in the plasterwork of ruined walls.
The central provinces | Hué | The citadel | The Imperial City |
Ngo Mon Gate
In 1833 Emperor Minh Mang replaced an earlier, much less formidable gate with the present dramatic entrance way to the Imperial City, Ngo Mon, considered a masterpiece of Nguyen architecture. Ngo Mon (the “Noon” or “Southwest” Gate) has five entrances: the emperor alone used the central entrance paved with stone; two smaller doorways on either side were for the civil and military mandarins, who only rated brick paving, while another pair of giant openings in the wings allowed access to the royal elephants. The bulk of Ngo Mon is constructed of massive stone slabs, but perched on top is an elegant pavilion called the Five Phoenix Watchtower as its nine roofs are said to resemble five birds in flight when viewed from above. Note that the central roof, under which the emperor passed, is covered with yellow-glazed tiles, a feature of nearly all Hué’s royal roofs. Emperors used the watchtower for two major ceremonies each year: the declaration of the lunar New Year; and the announcement of the civil service exam results, depicted here in a lacquer painting. It was also in this pavilion that the last Nguyen emperor, Bao Dai, abdicated in 1945 when he handed over to the new government his symbols of power – a solid gold seal weighing ten kilos and a sheathed sword encrusted with jade.
The central provinces | Hué | The citadel | The Imperial City |
Thai Hoa Palace
Walking north from Ngo Mon along the city’s symmetrical axis, you pass between two square lakes and a pair of kylin, mythical dew-drinking animals that are harbingers of peace, to reach Thai Hoa Palace (“the Palace of Supreme Harmony”). Not only is this the most spectacular of Hué’s palaces, its interior glowing with sumptuous red and gold lacquers,