Huế, Vietnam –
Let’s see, Lake house?
Check!
Personal Theater?
Check!
Housing for concubines?
Check!
Hmm, it seems there was something else needed…
What was it?
Oh yeah! Tomb?
Check! Check! Check!
What can I say; it’s good to be Emperor…
I know that a lot of cemeteries are peaceful places, suitable for meditation and contemplation. But this place takes it to an all-new level.
Yes, I know that the Emperor is considered god-like, and that his death will not be the end of him. Which is why his tomb should include areas for his spirit to come and meditate long after he’s gone. But it seems Tu Duc didn’t want to wait.
Why should he have to die to get to enjoy meditating at his tomb’s temple? Why not make it his country estate, where he can go to get away from the palace to relax, meditate, and write his poetry any time he wanted?
And, that’s just what he did.
When you first enter the gate of his tomb, you find yourself in a palace-away-from-home. You have a small lake on your right (more like a very large pond), complete with a private island, lake house (for parties), and dock. To your left are the crumbling remains of the residences, including random walls of the Emperor’s concubine’s houses, a personal theater (which looks like it’s still used for occasional performances) and family residences.
It’s quite the getaway for the busy ruler.
It’s only once you venture further into the grounds that you eventually come to the tombs that were the stated purpose for this estate.
If you venture far enough, you find that there isn’t one tomb on the grounds, there are three.
There’s Tu Duc’s tomb, with a large stele, stone guards, and all that goes along with it, Empress Le Thien’s tomb, and Emperor Kien Phuc’s tomb.
Kien Phuc was the adopted son of Tu Duc and ruled for less than a year after his dad’s passing. Apparently that was not enough time to have his own tomb complex built, so he took advantage of the extra room at his father’s tomb.
But Tu Duc is not actually buried here. Apparently this one is just for show.
And may be a bit of misdirection.
It seems he is buried in a secret location, somewhere around Hue, not yet discovered.
How did they keep the location so secret?
Well, beheading all the workers who built the place seems to have done the trick.
Ouch! What a way to thank them for all their hard work…
Remind me never to work for the Emperor. I’m not sure I care for the retirement plan.
Having been to a couple of other Imperial tombs earlier in the day, one thing really stood out when visiting this one. Other than the tombs themselves, the grounds are laid out in a very asymmetrical manner.
Yeah, when you visit Ming Mang’s tomb, the lake is asymmetrical, but that is due more to the rise and fall of the hills within the grounds than to any intentional design by the planners. Once you start down the path of the temple to the tomb, everything is in a straight line and balanced.
No, Tu Duc’s is very unbalanced and flowing. You’ve got the main pathway, curving gently along the shoreline, and once you get past the main body of the lake, making a loop around the rest of the grounds. And all of the structures are on the outside of the pathway. If you go “straight” down the pathway, from the moment you enter the main gate to the point where the path has looped around and rejoined itself, all of the structures will be to your left.
Of course, I didn’t follow that route. Nope, I took the first turn available, and went against the flow of other visitors in the sequence of sights throughout the grounds.
Not that there were a lot of other tourists to deal with. When I first entered the grounds, there were a couple of good-sized groups, but I got the impression that they were there to see the main tomb, and the temple area, but little else. By the time I wandered away from the lake, the groups were nowhere to be found.
In fact, when I got over to the tomb and temple for Kien Phuc, the only other person I saw was a caretaker who was sitting in a structure, watching television. He seemed a bit surprised to see me looking in the doorway at him, but he didn’t move from his perch.
I’m guessing he was too involved in whatever Vietnamese soap opera he was watching to be bothered.
It was only when I reached the Empress’ tomb that I started encountering other visitors again.
Eventually, I got back across the creek and over to Tu Duc’s tomb itself, or at least the “public” tomb. There, in a large open plaza, was the very large stele with his self-penned epitaph. I’m guessing that the tradition was for the Emperor’s own son to write his epitaph, and since he didn’t sire any sons, he had no choice but to write it himself.
He felt this was a very bad omen. Why? Beats me. He was the longest lasting Emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty. And that Dynasty lasted for at least another half-dozen Emperors after him.
Hmm. So whatever the omen foretold must not have been too bad.
Then again, I guess bad is relative. If I were Emperor, I might have a different opinion on what is bad and what is not.
Maybe he wanted the Dynasty to last for several hundred more years.
Maybe he didn’t want to have to hide his real tomb.
Maybe he wanted his poetry to be popular.
I guess we’ll never really know…
For more photos of Tu Duc’s Tomb, click here.
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