Holy day

We began the morning with a cruise down the Perfume River in Hue to Thien Mu Pagoda and the attached Buddhist monastery. The monks were just about to settle down to their lunch while we hadn't long finished breakfast, but since they'd been up since 4am, that was understandable. The pic is of one of the monks, possibly nervous about missing his fair share of starters.

Afterwards, we went down to the historic Citadel in Hue, seat of power in Vietnam through the reigns of 13 emperors (though some only lasted three days). Within the Citadel is the Imperial City itself, but only a couple of buildings survived the war with the French and, later, the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War.

What remains is seriously impressive, though. There's the front gate, from which the emperor would address his subjects, complete with a balcony for his 200 concubines. How he found time to rule the country, I'm not sure. And there's the throne room. The original gold throne has mysteriously disappeared.

The rest of the Imperial City is either ruins or consists of buildings that are slowly being restored. What's there is enough to give you a sense of the scale of what went on, and it's amazing to think this all operated up till about a century ago.

The rest of the day was devoted to lounging by the swimming pool and making the most of the resort's Happy Hour. Yet it still felt like quite a busy day. Well, that's our story...