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Published: June 29th 2008
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Our Home Away From Home
This is the bus we've chartered for the two weeks everyone is here. It's really nice and air conditioned! Day 6 - Trip to the North
So we all climbed in the bus and headed north to Hue (pronounced Hway). This is the former capital of Vietnam. The current capital is Hanoi. We visited the mausoleum of Emperor Tu Duc, one of the many emperors of the Nguyen dynasty. It was a very beautiful place. We then headed to the Thien Mu Pagoda which is the most important pagoda of Vietnam. It was high above the river. It was also a beautiful place to visit. There were plumeria (not sure if that is how you spell it) trees everywhere. If you’ve been to Hawaii it is the tree with the little white flowers. Anyway, they are so fragrant. The smell was everywhere.
We spent an hour or so there and then headed to lunch. The heat is really wearing everyone out by this time but we are scheduled to go the Citadel when we are finished so we donned our conical hats and headed off. The Citadel is a World Heritage Site. This is the location of one of the hardest fought battles of the 1968 Tet offensive. The Vietnamese refer to it as the Imperial City because this
View of DaNang
This was taken at the summit before driving north to Hue. is where all the leaders ruled their dynasties from. They choose this location in Vietnam because they didn’t want it to be too close to China for fear of a possible invasion. Many of the wall still stand but show the scars of many battles. Ted was here 3 years ago and said they have renovated much of the area. There was still a lot of cleaning up going on near the front of the Imperial City. Ted and I walked clear to the back to the areas not yet touched. It was odd that you could just walk all over the place and see all the buildings and sculptures up close. We walked to the Emperors Patio. This overlooked the Imperial City and the rest of the Citadel. It was very much in ruin from the battles and time. You’ll see that in the photos. Still it was very beautiful.
We only had an hour to wonder around which was not enough time but we had to keep with the schedule so we rushed back to find the rest of the group. I almost forgot… They had an area where you could dress up in the clothes of
At the Emporer's Mausoleum
One of the many buildings inside this mausoleum. the time and get your picture taken. It’s kinda of like the Old West photos you can get taken when you travel in America. Ted and I dressed up and got our picture taken. I think most of the group did too. It was too much fun and for $2.00 it was a good deal! We tried to get Amanda and Jessie to dress up but I think they got their fill of dressing up when we went to Czech Republic.
So we headed to our hotel to take showers and get ready for dinner and a Vietnamese river cruise. We only had a little over an hour so there wasn’t much time to get in a nap. It always seems like we’re eating here and no one is hungry because it too hot. I seem to be doing okay with avoiding the shellfish. There’s always plenty of other things too eat. Lots of chicken, beef, veggies, rice and fruit. The fruit here is amazing. The watermelon is so good here and the pineapple is to die for. They have dragon fruit which has the texture of a crunchy kiwi but is very sweet and is white in color. They
Amanda
Enjoying the sunshine. have lyche which is a little fruit about the size of a golf ball and has a prickly skin. You peal it and eat around the seed. It has the consistency of a grape. I can’t explain the flavor. It’s really good though. I haven’t had jack fruit yet but I hear it is also very good.
So last night we got on a river boat and watched a traditional Vietnamese folk performance. The instruments they used were very unusual. I’ll post the pictures so you can see. It’s definitely a different sound. The singing was also different. It sounded like they were singing the same song all night long. I’m sure they were very good but I’m not going out to get their CD anytime soon.
So back to the hotel to crash and up at 5:00am to head to the DMZ and then to some caves then back to Da Nang to have a whole day to ourselves! Ye-haw! Talk to you soon!
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