Decayed Colors of Hue

The city of Hue is the capital of a province in central Vietnam, drawing more and more tourists every year due to two historical facts:

First, Hue was one of the heaviest battlefields of the Vietnam War. Its location close to the border between the North and the South put it in a very vulnerable position. In the famous Tet Offensive in 1968, during the Battle of Hue, the city suffered considerable damage. (Watch Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket once again, or open your history books, if you want more details on this.)

Second, Hue was the Vietnamese capital under Nguyen dynasty from 1802 until 1945, when the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam was born and moved its capital further north to Ha Noi. The Nguyen emperors resided in the Imperial City, a walled fortress and palace right in the city center. For decades, the palace and its surrounding buildings have just decayed, but more recently, the government started to restore the beauty of what once must have been one of the prettiest places in Southeast Asia.

These images show a bit of the contrast between decay and beauty, of a country which was torn apart and is now growing together.