Ooooooooops, or is that poooops, there seems to be rattle in the cage, the gerble is galloping on the wheel. Things are a little loose this
morning.
, so I hope I have not caught the belly bug, .going to be a long day on the boat and walking the river if I have caught a bug, could be interesting.
Oh well, off to the Perfume river which runs through Hue, and up to the Thien My pagoda.
The pagoda was great, but I am more interested in the reign of the 13 emporers that ruled the kingdom through the 18 th and into the 20th century.

on the Perfume River.

dragon head boats

 there is a famous photo of a monk protesting the treatment of buddhists, who drove into Saigon and set himself on fire, the communists tried to steal his body, but the remaining minks cremated what was left, there is a photo here of his heart, which did not burn during his cremation. Today he is revered by the other monks, and this was the car he drove into town that day, so they memorialized this car in the pagoda

an Austin

Arrived at the summer Palace of emporers Tu Duc. He is also buried here. He has a tomb, but they buried him elsewhere on the property and no one knows where exactly, to save him from tomb raiders. The people designated to bury him
, and those who knew where they buried him, were put to death to hide the location. This was the 4th emporer,  and very unpopular, as he was a mommies boy who never made any decisions, and that eventually led to the French occupation.

I always though that when you were chosen to be a eunuch, you lost the family jewels. Here its different,
One, you choose to be a Eunuch (of which I have to ask why),  and if you choose to be one, here you loose the fire truck, and the hose.
Lunch was at a pagoda with the Nuns, very interesting, as we got to discuss their lifestyle and Buddhism. In reality, the only thing buddists truely believe in, is Kharma and the four noble truths.

A man asked Gautama Buddha, " I want happiness",   Buddha said " first remove I" , that is ego,,"then remove want" that is desire, , see you are now left with only " happiness".
along the road, we stopped to see a local making insence sticks and farmer hats, suprised me to see, as i though insence sticks were just dippied into the insence, appears not to be the case.

 Following the lunch we headed out to visit the tomb of Khai Dinh.
Khai Dinh was the 12th emporer who assumed the reign in the late 1800s and died in 1915 of TB. He assured there would not be many more emporers, because he was a little lite in the loafers, more of a catcher than a pitcher, hence there were no heirs.

He named his nephew to succeed him, who turned out to be the opposite, he was a ladies man, and hung around in bars all day.
The French eventually sent him back to Paris to be educated and taught how to behave, turns out he was a hit with the ladies there as well.
Khai Dinh built a beautiful tomb, maybe the best we have seen so far, very ornate and colorful, it was worth climbing the 137 steps to the top.

Dinner was good, and tomorrow we are of to Hanoi, a drive down to Ha Long bay, one fantastic wold Heritage site, named one of the new 7 natural wonders of the world.

A great quote today,,( peace comes from within, do not seek it without,,Happiness does not depend on what you have, or  who you are, it solely relies on what you think)