Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [222]
The central provinces - Part 2 | Around Hué | The Royal Mausoleums |
Visiting the mausoleums
The mausoleums are intoxicating places, occasionally grandiose but more often achieving an elegant simplicity, where it’s easy to lose yourself wandering in the quiet gardens. Of the seven, the contrasting mausoleums of Tu Duc, Khai Dinh and Minh Mang are the most attractive and best-preserved, as well as being easily accessible. These are also the three covered by the boat trips, so they can get crowded; don’t let this put you off – but if you do want something more off the beaten track then those of Gia Long, Dong Khanh and Thieu Tri are worth calling in on. Finally, Duc Duc’s temple and mausoleum are very modest but they are the closest to Hué and still tended by members of the royal family. Even if time allows, however, you probably won’t want to visit all the mausoleums at a ticket price of 55,000đ each. If you are lucky enough to arrive on a public holiday, entry is free. The mausoleums are open from 7am to 5pm every day, but note that it’s best to avoid weekends if possible when they’re at their busiest.
To get to the mausoleums you can either rent a bicycle or motorbike for the day (see "Arrival, information and city transport"), or take a motorbike tour, which normally includes at least one mausoleum, with one of the tour agents listed on "Listings". The most popular option, however, is a Perfume River boat trip (see "Boat trips on the Perfume River"). On a boat tour, you’ll face a couple of longish walks, while with your own wheels you’ll have to negotiate your own ferry crossings, but will have more time to explore, and won’t be restricted to the three main mausoleums. A good compromise is to take a bike on board a tour boat and cycle back to Hué from the last stop.
The central provinces - Part 2 | Around Hué | The Royal Mausoleums |
The Mausoleum of Tu Duc
Emperor Tu Duc was a romantic poet trying to rule Vietnam at a time when the Western world was challenging the country’s independence. Although he was the longest-reigning of the Nguyen monarchs, he was a weak ruler who preferred to hide from the world in the lyrical pleasure gardens he created. The Mausoleum of Tu Duc is the most harmonious of all the mausoleums, with elegant pavilions and pines reflected in serene lakes. The walled, twelve-hectare park took only three years to complete (1864–67), allowing Tu Duc a full sixteen years for boating and fishing, meditation, drinking tea made from dew collected in lotus blossoms and composing some of the four thousand poems he is said to have written, besides several important philosophical and historical works. Somehow he also found time for fifty-course meals, plus 104 wives and a whole village of concubines living in the park, though – possibly due to a bout of smallpox – he fathered no children. Perhaps it’s not surprising that Tu Duc was also a tyrant who pushed the three thousand workmen building his mausoleum so hard that they rebelled in 1866, and were savagely dealt with.
Entering by the southern gate, Vu Khiem, brick paths lead beside a lake covered in water lilies and lotus to a small three-tiered boating pavilion which looks across to larger Xung Khiem Pavilion, where Tu Duc drank wine and wrote poetry; khiem, meaning “modest”, appears in the name of every building. From the lake, steps head up through Khien Cung Gate, the middle door painted