An Bang Cemetery- City of Ghosts Hue, Vietnam

1. An Bang Cemetery Introduction

If Hue is famous for many unique constructions, including must be mentioned the famous An Bang Cemetery- also called the City of Ghosts Hue. Tombs of hundreds of millions to several billion VND are mushrooming after rain. Why does a fishing village once have an extremely poor period and must lead each other to beg to become so luxurious? Behind the most lavish tombs in Vietnam are stories that not everyone knows.

An Bang Cemetery Hue is famous not only in Vietnam but also in the world and is referred to by domestic people and foreign newspapers with fine words such as “An Bang ghost city“, “city of the dead“, ” villa area of ​​the dead, “tomb paradise “. Although this cemetery is not a tourist area, it is still a well-known tourist attraction.

2. An Bang Cemetery Hue, Where is it?

An Bang Cemetery Vietnam is also called the City of Ghosts Hue, considered to be the most luxurious and magnificent in Vietnam, located in An Bang coastal fishing village in Vinh An commune, Phu Vang district, Thua Thien – Hue province, about 35 km east of Hue city.

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3. An Bang cemetery interesting facts

3.1. The story of the pass

The An Bang village is originally a poor fishing village, the life of the people here mainly depends on the fishing and fishing near the shore, so the people’s life is still deprivation and misery.

However, in the early 1990s, when the Vietnamese government allowed overseas Vietnamese to send money to their relatives in the country, the village quickly changed flesh. There are up to 90% of the villagers have relatives residing abroad, mostly in the US and England.

The rapid change in life led to the development of the cemetery population when many families were willing to spend a lot of money to repair and build bigger and beautiful tombs for their relatives.

3.2. The dire competition to build tombs

The competition to build a big and beautiful tomb is very fierce, many families have finished building for a long time, immediately demolish the old tomb area to make it more spectacular and more beautiful. Many people, though still alive but have been built graves, so many steles only show the year of birth but not the year of death because its owner is still healthy.

3.3. The strange jobs

The increasing number of tombs has created quite stable jobs with relatively good income for masons, porcelain mosaic workers, and carvers in the area. Many people from neighboring districts also get jobs such as towing cars, carrying materials, or building an auxiliary lake to build a mausoleum.

Not only that, other services such as lighting incense, turning on electricity at night, cleaning, and protecting the tomb also give people an income of 2 to 3 million VND / person per month. On Tet holiday is due to high demand and high work, so the wage level is also increased significantly. Because of these reasons, the An Bang Cemetery- City of Ghosts Hue has dubbed the place where “the dead raise the living”.

3.4. The most lavish tombs in Hue and Vietnam

Because of its enormous size and sophisticated architecture, the cost of making tombs in An Bang Cemetery Hue is very high, an average of 50.000 dollars/ tomb. There are “super tomb” costing 200.000 dollars, which takes more than half a year of construction with dozens of workers to complete.

4. An Bang cemetery Hue structure

The uniqueness of the tomb village is not only in the size of the tombs but also in the architecture of building tombs. Most of the tombs in the An Bang Cemetery- City of Ghosts Hue, Vietnam are modeled after the tomb of Khai Dinh. Khai Dinh’s tomb is famous for its blend of many schools of architecture such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Roman, etc. The tombs are designed similar to the Emperor’s tomb, with a three-gate gate, roofed with glass tiles, stelae, pillars, and cities covered in colorful porcelain mosaics.

An Bang village currently has about 3,000 large and small tombs. In the early 1990s, because the local government did not have a specific plan, families arbitrarily seized land to build a tomb. Tombs in cemeteries of all sizes, shapes, and areas of 40 – 400 square meters. Many tombs are about 7 – 8 m high, nearly the height of a two-story house, some even as high as 10 m. The tomb is surrounded by dense houses, in An Bang village, between the living and the dead there are no “boundaries” anymore.

In the past the four holy beasts and serving only for the emperors, now you can see in many tombs here. On the stone steps, the mascots are both majestic and brave to guard the tombs. On the pillars, the dragon and the phoenix winding, hovering on the deep blue sky.

5. How to get to the City of Ghosts Hue?

“City of Ghosts Hue“- An Bang Cemetery is about 40 km from Hue city center. It’s located in An Bang village, Vinh An commune, Phu Vang district. The best way to See this particular city would be to book the Hue To Hoi An Motorbike Tour or Private Car From Hoi An to Hue. Reserve this tour, you can also see Tam Giang lagoon; Hai Van pass, Thanh Toan Bridge; Marble mountains, as well as Elephant springs. Please do not hesitate to book tours with Best Hue City Tour Travel to acquire fantastic experiences!