Next stop after Jungle Beach was Hue City. On the way, a tourguide from Saigon invited me to join his group for the morning. I did, at least just for the morning, and we ended up having such fun. In the afternoon, I rode a bicycle just outside of the city and visited Tu Hieu pagoda, which is Thicht Nhat Hanh's root temple. Very special. Then, I visited Duc Son, a nearby orphanage run by Buddhist nuns. I got very lucky and happened to be there at the same time a Vietnamese family who'd relocated to California were back for a visit and to make a donation--so they translated during a tour. I was so impressed! The nuns take care of 200+ children on a little more than $5,000 per month. Their philosophy is to create a nurturing, family environment and the orphanage has a huge success rate. It was founded in 1964. The nun in this picture has been there for more than twenty years. I really expected Hue to be a hard transition after more than a week at the beach, but these two visits (plus the friendly women from the tour) made it a day to remember.
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