Thua Phu Ferry Landing

Older people in Hue speak in a faraway voice of a small landing on the south bank of the Perfume River. It is as if the name alone could bring back the sound of oars in the water at dawn.

It is the Thừa Phủ landing, in the Vĩnh Ninh area. It stood right in front of the Thừa Thiên Prefecture. This ferry landing had a history of more than a hundred years, from 1899. Through all those decades it was the liveliest link in a corner of old Hue.

Every morning, lines of girls from Đồng Khánh School and schoolchildren from Quốc Học School queued to step down into the boat. They squeezed together on each crossing. Voices called back and forth, books rustled, and water slapped against the sides of the boat. All of it blended into the familiar rhythm of a Hue morning. Those crossings carried more than passengers. They carried childhood, and the dreams of a whole generation of students in the old capital.

Then, in 1973, the Phú Xuân Bridge opened across the Perfume River. Nobody needed the ferry anymore. The sound of the oars faded, then stopped altogether. The Thừa Phủ landing closed from that day.

Today, someone passing through the Vĩnh Ninh area might not recognize any trace of a landing that was once so crowded. But those who sat in that little ferry boat remember the sound of the river in the morning and the feeling of waiting for the boat in the wind. Both remain whole in memory, as fresh as ever.