Everyone comes to Hue for the emperors, but the capital could not run without the working city one canal-crossing away. This walk slips out of the citadel's east corner into Gia Hoi, the old merchant quarter of markets, guild temples, and century-old timber houses that the tour buses skip.
Start · Dong Ba Market: The Engine Room of the Capital
DirectionsStops
- 1
Dong Ba Market: The Engine Room of the Capital
Hue's largest and best known market, the commercial heart that fed the royal city and the launch point for this walk into the working quarter next door.
- 2
Gia Hoi Old Quarter: Crossing the Threshold
The Gia Hoi bridge over the Dong Ba canal, the natural threshold from the market into the nineteenth-century merchant quarter that preserves the folk life of the old capital.
- 3
Dieu De National Pagoda: The Court in the Neighborhood
A royal national pagoda on Bach Dang street, built on Emperor Thieu Tri's birthplace, showing how the dynasty extended its reach into the merchant quarter.
- 4
Chua Ong: The Cantonese Hall of the God of Loyalty
The Quang Trieu assembly hall at two hundred and twenty-three Chi Lang, a Cantonese guild temple to Quan Cong, patron of loyalty and honest trade.
- 5
Chieu Ung Pagoda: A Memorial to the Hainanese Dead
A Hainanese memorial at two hundred and seven Chi Lang, honoring merchants killed in eighteen fifty-one and later vindicated by royal decree.
- 6
Chi Lang Street: The Old Chinese Street of Gia Hoi
The spine of Gia Hoi, lined with overseas-Chinese guild halls and century-old timber shophouses, the everyday street that resupplied the capital.
Details
Best Time to Visit
Early morning, roughly between seven and ten, when Dong Ba market is at its liveliest and the day is still cool. The quarter is quieter and more atmospheric in the soft light of late afternoon. Avoid the heavy rain and flood season, which typically runs from around October to December in Hue, when the low-lying streets near the canal can flood.
Pro Tips
- •Start at Dong Ba early to catch the market fully awake, then let the crowds thin as you cross into the quieter quarter.
- •Carry small bills and water. This is a working neighborhood, not a tourist strip, and cafes are informal.
- •Read the guild halls from the street. Most are privately owned by hometown associations and may be closed, so admire the facades and do not expect to enter.
- •If a temple or hall is open and you step inside, remove your hat, lower your voice, and ask before photographing altars or worshippers.
- •Look up as you walk Chi Lang. The century-old timber shophouses above the modern shopfronts are the real heritage of the street.
- •If you have extra time and energy, extend downriver to the old port village of Bao Vinh for its rare two-story timber houses.
Safety & Precautions
- •Hue can be intensely hot and humid, and the market and open streets offer little shade. Wear light clothing, use sun protection, and drink water often.
- •The rainy season, roughly October through December, brings heavy downpours and flooding to the low ground near the Dong Ba canal. Check the forecast and avoid the quarter during floods.
- •The pagodas and assembly halls are active places of worship. Dress modestly with shoulders and knees covered, remove shoes where indicated, and stay respectfully clear of ceremonies.
- •Dong Ba is a busy, crowded market with motorbike traffic at its edges. Keep valuables secure and stay alert when crossing streets and the Gia Hoi bridge.
Travel advisory: Exercise Normal Precautions (Level 1).
Gallery
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Read the walk
The full story of Behind the Palace, in words. Prefer to listen? Play it narrated, from home or on location.
Introduction
Everyone comes to Hue for the emperors. The citadel, the throne room, the tombs along the Perfume River. But the court could not eat, dress, worship, or trade without the working city beside it, and that city is where we are headed. This walk is called Behind the Palace, and it leads you out of the citadel's east corner and one canal-crossing away, into a quarter most visitors never see. Across six stops and roughly ninety minutes, covering about two and a half kilometres here in Hue, in central Vietnam, you will trace how the old capital actually fed and supplied itself. We begin at Dong Ba, the great market that has anchored this riverbank for over a century. We cross the Dong Ba canal at the Gia Hoi bridge into the merchant quarter. We meet a royal pagoda the dynasty planted right in the neighborhood. And we walk the immigrant spine of Chi Lang, the street Hue still calls the Chinese Street, past guild temples built by overseas-Chinese congregations and timber houses more than a hundred years old. Go at your own pace. Every stop stands on its own, so linger where you like and skip what you like. Wear light clothes and carry water, because Hue can be hot and the streets offer little shade. And treat the temples as living places of worship, because most of them still are. When you arrive at Dong Ba Market, begin with stop one.
1. Dong Ba Market: The Engine Room of the Capital
Stand at Dong Ba and you are standing in the engine room of the old capital. This is Hue's largest and best known market, and travel guides, including the Vietnam Airlines guide, will tell you so. It runs along the north bank of the Perfume River, near the southeast corner of the citadel, spread across more than forty-seven thousand square metres of stalls. Wikipedia calls it a landmark of the former capital, and its history maps the dynasty's own ups and downs. Under Emperor Gia Long, the first Nguyen emperor, the market sat just outside the citadel's Eastern Gate, with a roofed hall at its center, and people called it the Quy Gia market. It burned to the ground in eighteen eighty-five, during the battle for the Hue imperial city. Emperor Dong Khanh had it rebuilt in eighteen eighty-seven. Then in eighteen ninety-nine, as part of a plan to modernize Hue, Emperor Thanh Thai ordered it reconstructed here at the riverside, with forty-eight roofed stalls and a well dug inside for water. It was rebuilt again in the nineteen sixties and damaged during the Tet Offensive of nineteen sixty-eight, then given a major renovation in the late nineteen eighties. Think about what a market means to a royal city. The emperors staged power in the throne room, but the rice, the salt, the fish, the silk, all of it moved through here first. There is one more thread worth carrying with you. Wikipedia notes that a Franco-Vietnamese school later built on the market's old site was reportedly attended by a young man named Nguyen Tat Thanh, the future Ho Chi Minh. From here, the market points you east, toward the canal and the quarter beyond.
2. Gia Hoi Old Quarter: Crossing the Threshold
You are crossing a threshold. Behind you is the market and the great citadel. Ahead, over the Dong Ba canal on the Gia Hoi bridge, is the merchant quarter that kept the capital supplied. Pause on the bridge and take in both. Gia Hoi is the nineteenth-century trading neighborhood wedged between the Perfume River and the canal, and it has a longer story than its houses suggest. After the Nguyen lords moved their seat to Kim Long in sixteen thirty-six, and then to Phu Xuan in sixteen eighty-seven, merchants both Vietnamese and Chinese settled along these banks and traded in rice, salt, seafood, silk, gold, medicine, and pottery. Many of the Chinese families came from the southern coast in the seventeenth century, during the upheaval as the Ming dynasty gave way to the Qing, and they gathered here in the eastern quarter to trade and to live. Artisans worked too, making coffins, mother-of-pearl inlay, bricks, tiles, and woven crafts. Vietnamese cultural researchers like to put it this way, and Hue heritage press repeats it: the citadel across the water preserves the court life of the old capital, while Gia Hoi preserves its folk life. That is really the whole idea of this walk. The palace is the stage of power. This grid of narrow streets was the engine of daily survival. Around thirty-nine timber houses more than a century old are said to still stand in the quarter, some of them beautifully kept, some quietly falling apart. As you step off the bridge, you are not leaving the imperial story behind. You are walking into the half of it that fed, clothed, and supplied the other half. Let the street pull you inward, and take your time.
3. Dieu De National Pagoda: The Court in the Neighborhood
Along the canal on Bach Dang street stands a pagoda that tells you how far the court's reach extended into this working neighborhood. This is Dieu De, and it is not an ordinary neighborhood temple. It was named for the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, and it carries the rank of a…
Full narration for this stop unlocks with the tour.
4. Chua Ong: The Cantonese Hall of the God of Loyalty
Now we reach the immigrant spine of the quarter, the street of the guild temples, and this is the first of them. Locals call this one Chua Ong, the temple of the lord, and the lord in question is Quan Cong. It sits at number two hundred and twenty-three on Chi Lang street, and…
Full narration for this stop unlocks with the tour.
5. Chieu Ung Pagoda: A Memorial to the Hainanese Dead
Right beside the Cantonese hall, at number two hundred and seven, stands the emotional heart of this quarter. Chieu Ung is a memorial, built by the Hainanese Chinese congregation of Hue, and it commemorates a tragedy. In the year eighteen fifty-one, during the reign of Emperor…
Full narration for this stop unlocks with the tour.
6. Chi Lang Street: The Old Chinese Street of Gia Hoi
For the last stop, simply walk. Chi Lang is the spine of Gia Hoi, running northeast along the east bank, and it is the street Hue still calls the Chinese Street. The name has changed with the times. Under the French it was Rue Gia Hoi, given in nineteen oh-eight. In nineteen…
Full narration for this stop unlocks with the tour.