Hue - Day 6

We begin our exploration of this beautiful city with a visit to the 18th Century  Citadel, built by the Nguyen Dynasty to protect Hue from invaders.  It is built in traditional fortress style, with an outer wall 6 metres deep and 20 feet high with a 50 foot wide moat surrounding it,  cutouts for artillery, and heavy doors at the 10 gates.  Inside there is a second wall with a second moat, making the whole fortification very secure.  Inside the second wall is Vietnam’s Forbidden City, home of the royalty for most of 3 centuries.  Unfortunately, when the French returned to power after World War II they decided to raze as much of this historic site as possible, and what little remained was destroyed during the TET offensive in 1968.  As a consequence the site is now undergoing restoration under the auspices of UNESCO and the Vietnam government.  Nevertheless we are able to see what has been restored so far and found it both interesting and beautiful.  Next we visit a Buddhist run orphanage that receives support from Grand Circle Foundation.  192 orphans live there fulltime, with 92 of them boys, and 100 girls.  The youngest is 2 weeks old, and the oldest are in 3rd year university, so probably about 20.  They are clean, well-dressed, appear to be well-fed and happy.  Their only other option is government-run orphanages which Tano says are very bad and overcrowded. 

Next we experience a vegetarian lunch at a local Buddhist monastery.  It is vegetarian because today is the first day of the full moon, and therefore a day of vegetarian only lunch.  It was so delicious, and we were pleasantly surprised to enjoy the variety of meatless dishes they provided.  Next we head for the largest Pagoda in Vietnam, the Thien Mu Pagoda.  It is beautiful.  There is the traditional 7 story pagoda at the entrance leading to the Royal Temple which has many gold images of Buddha, as well as eighteen 200 year old ceramic figures of the Apostles of Buddha.  Beautiful grounds, wonderful woodwork, lovely ceramic figurines on the roof lines.  Very peaceful.