HUE

We took the night bus from Tam Coc to Hue,.....quite a unique experience!😬

These buses cram in 3 rows of double decker bunk type reclining seats and ,although there’s plenty of legroom,once you’re in there’s not a hell of a lot of space to move around the bus.

I managed a lot more sleep than I would’ve on a train or a conventional luxury bus.

Left Tam Coc at 9pm and reached our destination at 7:30 where we were immediately treated to a free breakfast before checking into our room ,complete with canine.

Hue was the ancient capital of Vietnam for centuries and,like Hanoi, carries a lot of the French colonial architectural (and other) influence .

The French colonists were not the nicest guys at the time.

They ruled with an iron fist for more than a century until just recently (around 1960), and committed many atrocities ,.......however the Vietnamese appear to have put these animosity’s aside and utilized the “good” to their advantage.

Looks like a really nice city, lining either side of the impressive Perfume river and maintaining much of the French influence and cuisine.

This place,.....along with Hanoi,was bombed to smithereens by the Americans right at the tail end of the Vietnam war.

The end of the war was virtually fait accompli when Nixon secretly intervened and convinced the south Vietnam leaders at the time to kaaibosch the peace talks .

An American election was looming 18 months down the line and he wanted the newly elected Republicans to achieve the kudos for brokering peace.

The result,.....2 more years of what was clearly a futile war,....and thousands more American body bags .

These events coincided with his decision to carpet bomb the civilian population in these main north Vietnamese cities, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths, and the virtual obliteration of buildings and infrastructure.

An act of genocide??......I wonder whether he’d have made such a decision if the Vietnamese bombers had been within range of the USA?

The full details of these political manouvres only came to light many years later.