Finally, some time to explore!

Finally I've settled into my schedule so I found some time to go exploring in Hue. One of the Vietnamese volunteers offered to take me to a few fabulous places around Hue, including Thien Mu Pagoda, Hue's Temple of Literature, the Arena (tigers and elephants were forced to fight against each other as a spectacle for kings) and the Palace of the Crying Elephants, a temple erected in memory of the elephants that died. As the tigers' claws were clipped before battle hardly any of the elephants were killed so they mostly died a natural death. Apparently this 'declawing' was because tigers symbolised barbarism and elephants symbolised the wisdom and eternity of the Vietnamese royal family.

Yesterday I also got to meet up with my aunt and uncle, who are travelling in Vietnam with two friends. I joined in their private tour for the day and we visited the Minh Mang tomb - one of the kings' mausoleums - and the citadel. I also got to revisit the Thien Mu Pagoda, with a qualified tourguide this time! It was built in 1601 and has the highest pagoda tower in all of Vietnam. The pagoda is also famous for a tragic event in the 1960s: one of the buddhist monks borrowed a car, drove to Saigon and set himself on fire in protest of goverment policies on religion, which was regarded as being pro-Christian and anti-buddhist. You can still see the car at the pagoda which was retrieved from Saigon.

After our visits we took one of the fascinating dragon boats back to Hue along the Perfume River.

In the afternoon my visitors came to see me at my two placements, including the children's shelter which was staging the Royal Wedding Party. Sadly it had just finished when we got there due to our taxi driver getting completely lost even though I knew exactly where to go and kept pointing at my map! However, you will all be able to see the footage from our royal wedding party on Monday, 7.10pm UK time on Channel 4. If possible, could one of you record it for me? I think I may be in it for 2 seconds holding a child and avoiding clearing up. Oops.


My visitors have now continued their trip to Hoi An and then on to Ho Chi Minh City, so this morning me and the other volunteers went to one of the 4 star hotels for an all you can eat breakfast buffet for the equivalent of 4 USD. So so good! And I filled up on cheese, so that'll last me until the middle of the week, I hope.
For some reason we all seem to have the day off today, so we went to one of the other children shelters, bought water bombs and had a hilarious water fight as it is absolutely scorching today! We'd planned on going to the beach but I'm actually spending my afternoon in the office, with all the fans on updating my blog and listening to music.

This evening we're checking out Hue food festival, which starts today and there are all sorts of activities planned as well as performances and exhibits. Tomorrow we're taking 20 of the kids from the children's shelter to the festival for a day out, which should be fun!


Will upload some pics from my antics onto tumblr.
xxx