Interesting culture and places in Hue, Vietnam; as featured in the 3rd episode of The Amazing Race Asia (TARA) season 3.
Hue City
Huế is a historic city in central Vietnam and was the imperial capital of Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945). Hue is located about 1100km from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s capital city. It took about 25 hours of bus ride to travel from HCMC to Hue.
Complex of Hue Monuments
The Complex of Hue Monuments is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Sites; the complex comprises of 16 historic monuments from the Nguyen Dynasty. Among the monuments that featured in The Amazing Race Asia were the Khai Dinh Tomb, Minh Mang Tomb and Hue Citadel (the pitstop).
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Lý Thái Tổ (974-1028) was the founder and first emperor of Vietnam’s Lý Dynasty (1009-1225). After ascending the throne, he moved the capital to Đại La (which he renamed as Thăng Long) in 1010, which in the end becomes present day Ha Noi.
The Ly Thai To statue above is located at Indira Gandhi Park, nearby Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi to commemorate the Vietnamese emperor.
Took a day tour to Bath and Stonehenge during my UK trip in 2005. The tour departed on 8 am on a MPV, with a driver-guide as well as 13 other tourists.
The driver stopped midway on the road, and pointed us to a large horse-like figure on a hill slope distance away. Honestly I was blurred about what he said (something about chalk), as I never heard of anything about it before…
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Trafalgar Square, one of the world’s most famous squares, located in the heart of London. Unfortunately the place was under renovation during my 2005 visit; the fountains were not working, and the usual crowd hanging out somewhere else.
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Piccadilly Circus, a famous road junction, popular hangout place, and iconic tourist spot in London.
Most tourists probably don’t know the name of the symbolic fountain though… it’s officially named the Shaftesbury Monument Memorial Fountain, or Shaftesbury Memorial in short.
The winged-nude statue on top has a name too… Angel of Christian Charity, popularly known as Eros after the mythical Greek God of Love.
Piccadilly Circus is a busy place; surrounded by theatres, shops, malls, hotels, restaurants, pubs and endless traffic. The neon signboards in the area are quite a scene at night; probably not as splendid as New York’s Time Square, but spectacular nonetheless.
When I visited London a few years earlier there were lots of pizzerias and kebab stores around, but only a few of them remained in the area. I still managed to grab a pizza nearby, but disappointingly it wasn’t as good as it used to be.
London & UK travelogue
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