Wee What a day in Hue

Hue is an amazing place here in Vietnam. I had one of my best nights of sleep in the hotel. Hue is not nearly as noisy and busy as Hanoi. I had booked a tour with a group for the day. I was a little worried because the tour would end at 4:30 PM and I needed to be on the bus at 5:00 PM for the Camel back. They came to pick me up and stopped at several more hotels. A number of the people on the bus were families of Viet Kieu (Vietnamese that live overseas and often with families that they were bringing back to see the home country). Peter and Annie were a typical couple. She had left over 20 years ago and now she was bringing her Army husband, just back from Iraq, to meet her family that she had not seen for many years either.

The tour was of a village where they made incense sticks and also conical hats that the farmers wear. Then we visited 3 royal tombs of the Nguyen Dynasty. The tombs all had similar patterns of gates, elephants, mandarins and then a biography and then a special pond and then the head being the tomb itself. The area reminded me of home in many ways. The climate of course, but also the sandy hills with pine trees with lakes and clear water ponds and rivers just reminded me of the part of Florida I grew up in . Also the river goes out to something like the intercostal waterway and then the ocean. Look at it on Google earth and you can see. There were a number of small children and some become very tired. Our guide began to fade particularly in the afternoon after lunch.

Although I had been to the Citadel the day before I went with the group again. The got a very brief tour and I am glad I got to spend more time there. The final stop was the Pagoda. It has 7 stories and is one of the most famous here in Vietnam. It has been a place that had appealed for peace many times. There is a famous image of a Monk that in protest died in a terrible fire. It was in all the papers in the early 60’s and in the history books. He was from this place. I shared some of the incense I had bought with the members of our tour so that they could make their own offerings. There were many young novices there and they were helping in the temple. I wondered around back and an old man was sitting on some beds that were also cabinets and he invited me in to to talk to me. He was, as it turned out the Abbot of the monastery now. This room was where many of the novices lived and he was their teacher of Buddhist Philosophy. While I was there many came and went as they robed to go and serve in the temple. In the traditional Vietnamese way he asked were I was from about my family and children. He said that he of course could not marry and had no children but he had 90 novices as his children now. Also he spoke of the many of his friends were now leading Buddhist communities around the world and some in America. Why he choose to speak with me I don’t know and I almost always feel uncomfortable saying I am from the USA in light of the history but they are looking forward and not backwards while they live in the present.(the Buddhist way)

He told me that you should always have your incense in groups of threes. One for the past, one for the present and one for the future.

The present caught up with me and I realized I had missed my boat and needed to get back to the bus. There was no taxi and I had to take my first xe om (motorscooter) trip. Obviously, I am writing this so no worse for wear. Long trip back on the bus and then off to work. Will put a picture of the Abbot up on the web when I can.