“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” — Cesare Pavese
The best and worst part of our trip lies in its structure. I love so much how busy we are, how many local students we meet, and how many different things we do and see, but in the same sense, I HATE it. This is not a typical abroad program. Our leaders, Co Thanh and Anh Truong, do everything for us besides spoon feed us, which I love so much, but the lack of independence we have does get to me sometimes. So on this grand excursion, my patience is definitely tested. I know I appreciate their diligence and hard work, and value all of the amazing things we do, but feeling like a child again does get a little difficult (my mom is probably laughing reading that because she still believes I AM a child).
Anyways, we traveled to Hue and got there rather late, so we did not get to see the city at first. From what I knew about it, I knew that thirty years before, it was completely destroyed by the war. Not more than 100 miles from the DMZ, the entire city was ripped apart by one of the bloodiest battles. So coming here, it was fascinating to not even be able to tell that it was once in shambles and thousands were killed.
The next morning, we got to bike through the town where we were able to see various parts of the city. We stopped at a historians house, and there we learned about the history of Hue and its ancient heritage. It was the second half of the day, however, that I appreciated the most. We visited the ancient and famous citadel of Hue, where we were able to explore the different layers of this ancient city. There were three layers and the deeper we walked, the more sacred the land was. It was fascinating seeing the architecture and the different emperors that the ancient people of Hue worshipped, and it was also really incredible to see it was still standing, even after the war. I am not sure how or why it was, but I would love to think that both sides respected its sacred roots and steered clear. Wishful thinking though.
That night, we walked through the city with some local university students, where we sat at a local restaurant and talked about their experiences in school, what they like to do, and other things we could have in common. Meeting new students is something I feel very lucky to be able to do because I would never have met them if I were visiting Vietnam on my own, or if Co Thanh was not as prevalent as she is.