Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [223]
The second group of buildings, to the north, is centred on the emperor’s tomb, preceded by the salutation court and stele-house. Tu Duc’s stele, weighing twenty tonnes, is by far the largest; unusually, Tu Duc wrote his own self-critical eulogy, running to over four thousand characters, to elucidate all his difficulties. Behind the stele is a kidney-shaped pond, representing the crescent moon, and then a bronze door leading into a square enclosure where the unadorned tomb shelters behind a screen adorned with the characters for longevity. Emperor Kien Phuc, one of Tu Duc’s adopted sons, is also buried here, just north of the lake.
Tu Duc’s Mausoleum is 7km from central Hué by road. From the boat jetty, it’s a walk of 2km from the river on a dirt track, or take one of the xe om waiting on the riverbank (10,000đ). On the way you pass incense sticks out to dry and people making – and selling – Hué’s famous conical hats.
The central provinces - Part 2 | Around Hué | The Royal Mausoleums |
The Mausoleum of Khai Dinh
By way of a complete contrast, the Mausoleum of Khai Dinh is a monumental confection of European baroque, highly ornamental Sino-Vietnamese style and even elements of Cham architecture. Its most attractive feature is the setting, high up on a wooded hill, but it’s worth climbing the 130-odd steps to take a look inside the sanctuary itself, still in its original state. Khai Dinh was the penultimate Nguyen emperor and his mausoleum is a radical departure from its predecessors, with neither gardens nor living quarters and only one main structure. Khai Dinh was also a vain man, a puppet of the French very much taken with French style and architecture, and though he only reigned for nine years it took eleven (1920–31) to complete his mausoleum, and it cost so much he had to levy additional taxes for the project.
The approach is via a series of grandiose, dragon-ornamented stairways leading first to the salutation courtyard, with an unusually complete honour guard of mandarins, and on to the stele-house. Climbing up a further four terraces brings you to the principal temple, built of reinforced concrete with slate roofing imported from France, whose extravagant halls are a startling contrast to the blackened exterior. Walls, ceiling, furniture, everything is decorated to the hilt, writhing with dragons and peppered with symbolic references and classic imagery such as the Four Seasons panels in the antechamber. Most of this lavish display, not as garish as it might sound, is worked in glass and porcelain mosaic – even the central canopy, which looks like fabric. A life-size gilded bronze statue of the emperor holding his royal sceptre sits under the canopy, while his altar table and funerary tablet are up on the mezzanine floor behind. His portrait stands on the incense table in the antechamber. Khai Dinh was a particularly flamboyant dresser and it’s rumoured that he brought back a string of fairy lights from France and proceeded to wear them around the palace, twinkling, until the batteries ran out.
Khai Dinh’s Mausoleum is 10km from Hué by road. Arriving by boat, it’s a 1.5-kilometre walk, heading eastwards up a valley with a giant Quan Am statue on your right until you see the mausoleum on the opposite hillside.
The central provinces - Part 2 | Around Hué | The Royal Mausoleums |
The Mausoleum of Minh Mang
Court officials took fourteen years to find the location for the Mausoleum of Minh Mang – for which the mandarin responsible was awarded two promotions – and then only three years to build (1841–43), using ten thousand workmen.