Hue City - My Hometown in Flood

Hue city is my hometown and Hue is always beautiful and attractive in my heart. As you may read some of my posts, Hue is a great destination for people who love nature and local cultures. However, I would like to show you a different appearance of Hue, a city in red of flood.

Hue is in the Central of Vietnam which has a narrow plain and mountain in the West. As a result, the rivers in Hue are pretty short and steep so they create flood as it is heavy raining. There are three rivers running through this area to Tam Giang lagoon before they mix with East Sea. In which, Huong river aka Perfume river is the largest and it lies through Hue City.

Nha Do Bridge crossing citadel moat

In October - November every year, it is flood season in Hue when it is heavy raining for weeks and sometimes Hue is hit by typhoon. As a result, water level of Huong river rises very quickly. Hue people prepare for this every years generations to generations. As a son of this land, I inherit the tradition to move furniture to higher in our house, store food for a week when it starts rain.

This year we are lucky not to get any high flood yet but last year we did. Whenever the flood water get on my street, we gather in the living room watching the water crawling to front yard. And after an hour, it turned to this.

My front yard in flood rise

Last year, I had to walked in this cold water to help my wife when his motorbike was broken in flood water. She was going home from work and its engine stopped. The water rose faster than our expectation. Sky got darker and we could not walk fast in water. There were some truck carrying cars went by that pushed waves to us. That story is not only my particular story but also others in this city.

Dap Da - the sign of flood coming

In our city, there is a little dam crossing a branch of Huong river. We call it Dap Da - Rocky dam. We often use it as a folk mark of flood, whenever water comes over the dam road, we know it is flood time. Before a new bridge was built, people on the other side of Dap Da were isolated until water was down.

Citadel in flood

I still remember in the flood in 2017, I was on tour with an American couple who were stuck in Hoi An because of flood. Finally, we got Hue and we had flood here as well. I decided to take them around in the citadel in rain when flood was a little bit down. I wore shorts and block motorbike exhaust pipe with a plastic bag so that I could start the engine on the higher road. We all had an extremely memorable experience of flood in Hue.

Le Duan street - along Huong river

My area is not too low but the area in the citadel and ancient town are very low. Therefore, the people who live there are struggle to live out of flood. Most of family have a boat to travel around. When I was little, I was happy in flood because I had days off and many fun games with water.
I and my brother caught fish crossing the road and made raft from banana trees. Then we cooked fish and fish was so great although it was so bony. I think that the taste was pushed up because we had caught them.

Bao Vinh Ancient town

Not all flood are controllable. The most terrible flood I got was in 1999. More than 400 people in Hue died because of it and a whole village in Thuan An beach was washed away.
At first, I was very happy because I did not need to go to school then, while we carried all stuff to living room. We put our stove and food on a bed and put that bed on chairs. Seven members of my family sat on that bed until the water came in the living room. The water was at my knees in the living room. Then we had to evacuate to my aunt's house in a higher area. My parents stayed on a bed for a week until water was down. I always remember the sound of helicopters flying day after day carrying food for people in lowland. My family got some instant noodles and 2 T-shirts.

City center

Nowadays, living standard is much better and flood in Hue is partly controlled by irrigation and hydro powered plants. Therefore the flood is not like it used to be but it is much longer. For me, flood in Hue is a part of our life and it is an undetectable part of Hue. I memorize flood of Hue in the past as good and bad time of childhood. I welcome flood of Hue in the future as a mystery of life.
For Hue, I love this land even in beautiful days as well as bloody bad flood days. As a wedding promise to be together, I got married to this land unconditionally.

Flood in front of the citadel

My painting of Hue rainy flood season
Some photo credit to Le Nhat Quang - my colleague
@tungphong
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