Rainy Day in Hue
I awoke today feeling much better to my relief and ready to get back to full speed here in Vietnam. It was a good thing as well, because we had a pretty full day today starting out bright and early at 8:30 am. I’ve gotten pretty used to starting out early, although I don’t know what the jet lag is going to do to me when I get back to Texas. The only other downer of the day was the fact that it was a cold and rainy day here in Hue, despite Wikipedia’s statements that the rainy season ends in December.
We started out the day taking a boat tour along the perfume river. While I originally thought we were visiting some of the past emperors tombs, we ended up visiting a Buddhist temple instead. This was the temple that the flaming monk originated from, if you’re not familiar with the story it was a monk who travelled to Saigon and lit himself on fire to protest religious persecution. Despite the rain it was really neat to learn more about Buddhism, and see some of the monks in action. We even got to watch as some of the monks meditated which consisted of singing words from the Buddhist philosophy.
The temple was much larger than I originally expected, but certainly quite modest. The temple was laid out with 3 main buildings in a row down the middle of the compound. The first and most important was dedicated to Buddha, this was followed by lady Buddha, and then finally the God of the Underworld. All in all the temple was much more expansive than I was thinking, I had generally assumed the temple to be simply 1 worship building and then dormitories and other living buildings. It was really cool to see this all up close and in person, although I imagine it must be hard to practice your faith with tourists watching your every move.
After leaving the temple we stopped in at the Imperial city, which was quite massive, or at least bigger than I was expecting. I guess I was thinking this was just going to be a palace, but it was quite literally a city. We were able to see the throne room and learn about some of the history of the emperors. It was quite sad to see that large portions of the city had been destroyed by the French army after the emperor surrendered the city to the communist party. Rather than let the city fall into communist hands large portions were decimated by the French, and have yet to be restored. Despite the missing structures, the city was quite a sight to see.
One of the interesting stories our guide Spider told us about was the process of selecting provincial leaders for the country. The smartest students from all over the country would be selected to come to the Imperial City and then the National Minister (monitored by the emperor) would read questions allowed from a tower, and evaluate the students. After the process was complete the students would be informed whether they would be fit for city, provincial, or national leaders. A rather interesting method of selection, but I supposed it would be effective.
We stopped for a quick lunch before moving on to the Hue University College of Medicine where we met with Nguyen Viet Nhan who is in charge of the Office of Genetic Counseling and Disabled Children (OGCDC). He gave us an inspiring talk about his work and the work of the organization. Through generous gifts from various people and organizations OGCDC helps perform heart operations on children that they would otherwise be unable to afford. It is quite sad to think that a simple $1500 heart operation which seems quite cheap to us is unattainable to a large portion of the population here. Besides the heart operations OGCDC also assists handicaps by implementing special wheelchairs and bicycles, as well as offering scholarships for underprivileged children.
We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying some down time since our flight to Hanoi wasn’t until 10pm. Hue, was certainly an interesting and fun city, and I wish we had some more time to explore the former capital of the country. I’m looking forward to Hanoi, and all that it should have to offer, and especially Ha Long Bay where we will be on Wednesday/Thursday.
One Final note, one of my fellow students on the trip, Havard Lyons, is also maintaining a blog if you’re interested in checking it out, He’s sure to offer another different perspective on everything so I definitely would recommend reading it. Click Here for Havard’s Blog.