Bai Dinh Pagoda

Two weeks ago, my tennis club arranged a day trip to Ninh Binh to visit the Bai Dinh Pagoda. We'd heard that this new, unfinished structure will be the biggest pagoda in South East Asia. The new structure lies behind the old Bai Dinh Pagoda, a 7-minute walk away. The old pagoda is really interesting with a fantastic view from the top.

Covering an area of around 700 hectares, the exact location of the pagoda is Gia Sinh Commune, Gia Vien District, Ninh Binh Province in front of the lake. The best locations for pagodas are near water and looking over the surrounding countryside, so the Bai Dinh complex is lucky in both respects. Even though it isn't finished yet, thousands of pilgrims are visiting, particularly as it's still early in the new year.Being among the first to visit a new pagoda is also something to be proud of too.

Hundreds of stone statues surround the pagoda in addition to four bronze huge ones, three weighing over 50 tons and one over 100 tons. Another feature is an enormous 36 ton bronze bell. They are all sculpted by Ninh Van, a local craftsman. Bai Dinh Pagoda is predicted to become one of the biggest centres for Buddhists in Vietnam.

Despite the crowds and the fact that the pagoda is unfinished, it was a really pleasant day in a special place in the fresh country air. I'm hoping to return when it's finished.

Yen Tu Pagoda II

The weather at Yen Tu was terrible with heavy rain and strong winds on the morning of our climb. We had to buy simple plastic rain coats to keep warm. The rocks we were climbing over were really slippery so we had to climb up carefully. We were the first group at the cable car station but we weren't the first group on the top of the mountain as there were hundred of people already up there. I couldn't believe my eyes. If they were there that early it meant they had to climb during the night in the dark. They had all settled down to nonstop chanting in the rain with their raincoats on. It looked surreal. We were on the top of the mountain at the bronze pagoda and it seemed the wind would blow everything away any minute, including the chanting ladies in raincoats. It was also a little bit scary. This was truly a memorable trip for me.

This small pagoda is made completely of bronze and everyone tries to reach the pagoda then touch it hopefully to get some blessing from the gods. I tried to take some photos but it was not difficult as there were too many people and also the strong wind and heavy rain. I was quite surprised about how religious these people were, some were 70 to 80 years old and had by-passed the cable car, choosing to walk from the base to the top in such horrible conditions. Some of them may not have been able to afford to buy tickets as it's quite expensive(140.000vnd).

We stayed there for around 20 minutes and walked down again for lunch before heading to other temples and pagodas on the way back to Hanoi. I'm sure this would be a more beautiful place with amazing surrounding view if we came here on a clear day. Hope the weather is good on my second trip back.

To be continued.

Yen Tu Pagoda

Last week, I joined a trip with my friend's company to Yen Tu Pagoda, the most holy and highest pagoda in the north and in fact, the whole of Vietnam. We started our trip at 3pm the day before and arrived at the base of the mountain after two and a half hours in the bus. The weather wasn't good as we expected as it was raining the whole day before and it meant the road was very wet, slippery and dangerous. We stopped at a small temple on the way and then spent almost an hour at Thien Vien Pagoda. After that we went straight on to Giai Oan Temple for 15 minutes of praying to release whatever we had done wrong in the past year, before heading up to buy cable car tickets for the next day. We decided to sleep overnight on the chieu nghi(sleeping mats) in Ngoc Hai restaurant, right next to Hoa Yen Pagoda then take a cable car at 6 am the next day. We hired the whole second floor of the restaurant for the 39 people on the trip. A few of us stayed at the place to prepare the dinner while most of our group went to Hoa Yen Pagoda for a short prayer.

The Sofitel Plaza staff, who I was invited to travel with, were really organized and had everything imaginable prepared, including a great dinner with lots of vegetables, cheeses, ham, boiled eggs, tofu with tomato sauce, chicken, square cake, sticky rice, bread, butter and of course, lots of wine, beer, soft drink and juice. I've never ever joined such a trip like this and just loved eating and talking with them. I found out that one of the ladies works in the hotel kitchen so no wonder she did it so amazingly well.

After dinner, everyone went upstairs for a nap trying to save energy for the next day but only a few of the women went to bed as most people started playing games. I couldn't sleep very well because whenever someone won the game of cards a cheer went up. It seemed to keep going from 9 pm until 5am. It's truly amazing that they still looked fine the next day and walked so fast up to the top of the moutain. There must have been something special in the chicken porridge they had for breakfast.

Tobe continued

Services At Perfume Pagoda

For someone like me who doesn't really know anything about pagoda culture, including the services offered, my recent trips have been interesting. All kinds of special services exist, such as money changers, incense sellers and lighters, fake money vendors, florists, wish list writers, relax mattress providers, toilets, hot showers, porters, and so on. I saw so many people exchanging money around the Perfume Pagoda it was like a bank. Everyone going to pagodas needs small money to put on altars and on the food trays, and also to give away to beggars for luck. If you want to change 100,000 dong, it will cost you 10-20,000 dong. That's the rule and everyone observes it.

Lots of other services exist on the way up the hill, including souvenir shops and small restaurants where you can sit down and eat your own picnic food. They charge 10,000 dong for one mattress which can handle five people, and if you want to borrow a knife or glasses, they may charge some more for that. There are many CD shop around and unfortunately, they don't play meditation or religious music. They play horrible crap pop music so loud which is really annoying. Everything you purchase needs to be agreed on in price in advance to avoid getting ripped off when you ask for the bill. Lots of these people assume that everyone who comes from the city is rich! But on the other hand, these people really only have a chance to earn money in the first few lunar months during the pagoda festivals.

Photographers also offer a service and there are heaps of them around. They ask every single person if they want their photo taken as a souvenir except me. They hate people who bring their own cameras! It is usually an express service and the photos can be ready in an hour but they are quite expensive. Many Vietnamese people nowadays have their own digital cameras but some of them still want a professional photographer to take a good one to show their friends. I heard one group of people arguing with one of the photographers about the quality and refusing to pay.

The third service is a vital one during the trip: the toilet part. It really makes me angry that they are really bad, stinky and dirty toilets at some of these pagodas because you have to pay to go. Some places charge 1000 dong and others charge 2000 dong and if you have to do number 2 then you may pay more for paper:). I always save doing number 2 until I get back to Hanoi as toilets here don't have doors and you have to hold your breath. They also sell hot water for showers as well and I'm not sure if it's clean water but I didn't see many people taking showers here. I didn't ask the price for this but I don't think it would be cheap.

The best part of my trip was my conversation with Huyen, a porter who's 32 years old with three kids. She's from My Duc, Ha Tay. She comes here to offer people to carry their stuff up the hill to the cave pagoda. She said that some days she earns about 200,000 dong and some days she earns nothing because there are lots of people around doing the same job and the competition is tough. She's such a nice lady. She also said that she only does this during the festival as her main job is working on the rice farm. This is a good chance to earn some extra money for her kids for schooling and also save a little bit for the family. It was really nice talking to her and I feel bad that we didn't have any way to help her out but I gave her 20,000 dong so she could buy something to drink.

Finally, I think the government should do something about the environment here as I saw people throwing rubbish all around, in the river and on the side of the hill. Visitors are destroying this beautiful place every single day even though there are many signs around but it doesn't seem to mean anything. Please keep the place as clean as it should be as this is such a holy place which attracts so much tourists, and also give hundreds of jobs for the local people.

Perfume Pagoda Feb 2008 Part II

Finally, we arrived at Thien Tru Temple( God's Kitchen). The rules of Thien Tru Temple don't allow visitors to put meat on the offerings tray and my friends had to remove the huge chicken and replace it with some more beers, cokes, square cake, flowers, sticky rice, money some fresh fruit and and lighted incense. This is such a busy destination as most people come here before heading to the top of the hill then down to Huong Tich Cave.

Devotees spend billions of dong here at this festival in the form of fake money, and fake holy stuff which is then burnt in giant incinerators after 15 minutes of praying and offering. People satnd in queues just to burn these papers and the ash flys around in the air, into everyone's hair like a volcano has just erupted. This is a tradition that should remain but people shouldn't burn so much in the hope that they will get the same in return. It's all very superstitious. I only spent about 300,000 dong on the whole trip including food, drink and transportation but many people spent millions of dong for the same thing but with the burning of the fake papers.

Khai, my friend, had to bring the tray inside and the rest of us took a rest to take photos around the complex. I tried to get inside to take some photos and give a wish but I couldn't as too many people were praying and reading their wish lists at that time. We left the Kitchen God's temple for Huong Tich Cave which took us about an hour. It was a pleasant climbing trip as we could see the scenery around and also hear the crazy music and look at the souvenir shops along the way. People were selling all kinds of goods, from sugarcane juice to toilet services. The toilet service is popular and you can imagine what the experience was like with all those people on the mountain!!! We decided to stop for lunch on the way up at one of the relaxing areas which had mattresses. We laid out all of the food which had been offered to the gods and tried to finish it all. Some of my friends felt a bit drunk after a few beers. We ate two big chickens, two square cakes, lots of fresh fruit, pork rolls and two plates of sticky rice. I felt sleepy after all but we had to finish our trip up.

Eventually we arrived at Huong Tich Cave and my friends repeated the same procedure with the tray and more food! This time our tray was topped with a special fake money tree. Hoang, one of the boys on the trip took them deep inside the cave which has the main altars of the whole complex. We had to be really aggressive to get close to the alters to pray. This is a huge cave packed with people inside praying at the same time. Most people touched the rock called 'the golden tree' wishing for a lucky year. They also stood around waiting for water drops to drip on their hands in another place called mother's breast for the same reason.

Thanks to Khai and his friends for inviting on this journey and, even though I'm not a very religious person, I really enjoyed the cultural experience and hope that everyone who believes gets what they prayed for!

Perfume Pagoda Feb 2008 Part I

Spring is pagoda season in Vietnam but truly people pay more attention in the north than other parts of Vietnam. Almost every single man knows how to prepare for these special festival occasions and I am really impressed about that. It also means this aspect of our culture will never end. As in the past years, my friend and his colleagues invited me to join their pagoda trip to photograph the day.

We met up in front of the Sofitel Plaza Hotel at 5 am and had some noodles nearby then headed to the Perfume Pagoda in Ha Tay province. The weather was quite bad, damn cold and raining but it improved after 2 hours. The driver was excellent as we didn't have any problems at all. We arrived at the Yen River where we parked the car and picked up the boat. The girls sat in the cafe to fill up the wish lists for everyone then we took a big 35 seat iron boat to the pagoda dock. The boat trip was really pleasant and I love coming back here just to see people doing their own praying, organizing their food on trays and the scenery along the river.

We arrived at Trinh Temple at first for my friends to pray for over half an hour and I took that chance to take photos and look around. It was really crowded even though it was Monday. It was fun to see my friends organizing their food tray, everyone put some money on the tray as well as soft drink, fake money, wish lists, beer, chicken, sticky rice, biscuits, fresh fruit, cigarettes, flowers and incense. It sounds like a lots of things but it looks very nice and very organized. Some other people put even more stuff on their small trays which end up very heavy.

After 30 minutes, we left for Huong Tich Cave which is the most religious place to go. I will tell you more about this in part II. Please take a good look at my flickr website where I saved all of the photos.

Pagoda Festivals

Spring in Vietnam, especially in the north, is the time that almost every person visits pagodas wishing for a great lucky year ahead. This is a traditional side of Vietnam's culture.

Most people choose the Perfume Pagoda, Yen Tu Pagoda for destinations outside of Hanoi. Some people choose the most famous pagodas in Hanoi such as the Defence Pagoda, the One Pillar Pagoda and Phu Tay Ho for their city destinations. By going to these places at this time of the year, you can see thousands of people coming to do the same thing - preparing food, incense, drinks and very long wish lists of paper. I joined with my friends the last few years for fun and to take photos even though I don't follow any religion and I'm not a very ceremonial guy. I love to go these pagodas and temple because I like to see people doing their little prayers, talking to them and it's nice to see people maintaining their traditional culture.

I remembered last year seeing my friends spend almost twenty minutes just praying and reading their wish lists. I asked them why they had to spent so much time on these things and God cannot listen to theirs as well as thousands of people's wishes at the same time. They told me that's the way it is and just smiled. Maybe I should do the same thing instead of just lighting a few insence sticks:). It's also not easy to reach the altar as hundreds of people are crowded in with their full trays of fruit, food and a huge cooked chicken on their heads. There is a very special service where people can change big notes to small notes - 500 dong, 1000 dong, 2000 dong and 5000 dong. Most people put the money on their food trays and on the altars or give it to beggars in the hope that some of it comes back during the year.

I will join with my friends again to go to some pagodas on the weekends and hope that I can take some good photos and show you guys some new stories about these pagoda festivals soon.

Tay Thien Pagoda And Silver Waterfall Part II

We left Tay Thien Pagoda at about 1pm and took a xe om down to the Silver Waterfall for a look. A shock for me was that there were quite a few agent orange victims sitting around asking for money, including little girls and boys. Looking at them made me feel so sad. We all donated some money to help them to get some food even though I know it will never be enough. We walked up a bit to see the waterfall but some guys in uniform wanted us to pay an entrance fee. We refused and walk in adifferent way but ended up at Cau Temple. We decided to stop here for another prayer and some relaxation. We took an oracle each and waited for an explanation from the old man fortune teller. He told us what it meant and he asked everyone to give him some money for his work.

There are many services here along the way up to the waterfall such as plastic shoe rental, walking stick rental and also many stalls selling the famous running chickens(free-range chicken)and vegetables.

After visiting Cau Temple, we walked back with feed of running chickens to enjoy as a second lunch at a little restaurant. Some of my friends took a nap and the others played cards. We had a great time until bill time, when the lady ripped us off so much for the vermicelli we ordered to go with the chicken. She charged us 70,000Vnd for half a kilogram of vermicelli. Oh my gosh! Everyone was angry and we told her we would only pay half that price even though it was still too much. Anyway, we ended up paying 60,000Vnd to that rip off merchant and left. Wish these things would never ever happen. My friends said to me that we were their big fish of the day and they don't catch many fish around in such wild areas. Shit happens.

We finished our tour on a different bus as the other bus couldn't be fixed. I got home at 6pm and was happy with our trip. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt!

Tay Thien Pagoda And Silver Waterfall Part I

Khai and his friends invited me to join their day trip to Tay Thien Pagoda. As usual for our pagoda trips, we left very early in the morning and it took us fours hours to reach the beautiful pagoda which is located right on the top of a hill. Unfortunately, the bus broke down halfway up the hill, and we had to walk up to the top. The scenery was beautiful along the road and also from the pagoda.

We chose a quiet day in the middle of the week but the pagoda was still really busy. Many people from other provinces and Hanoi came here to pray for a good year for their families. I saw many people taking xe oms(motorbike taxi) up the hill, even though they travelled from Hanoi by bus. You have to pay 10,000Vnd each for a return trip from the road where the buses stop up to the top and most motorbikes took two or three people at a time.

We spent two hours walking around the pagoda and had lunch in a beautiful bungalow right on the side of pagoda. I was so impressed about how clean the pagoda was, as people put their waste in the rubbish baskets around, unlike some other places in Vietnam

To be continued

Perfume Pagoda Part II

Our trip to the Perfume Pagoda involved spending another hour on the boat chatting, laughing and of course eating what we had earlier offered in the Trinh Temple. This meant we got the luck from god before we arrived at Perfume mountain and walked up to Thien Tru Temple( God's Kitchen) for another prayer. This is also the lookout where everyone takes photos because of it's beautiful and surrounded by hills and old trees. People also stop here and take a deep breath before climbing up the Perfume mountain to visit Huong Tich Cave.

We had lunch at this stop from what we offered at the God's Kitchen altar, which was quite a luxury lunch that included 3 chickens, lots of fruits, stickyrice, sausages, beer, energy drink and bread. If you look at the above picture, you can see the warning on the temple wall, which actually says you shouldn't eat in this holy place. I mentioned that to my friends but they said to me everyone sits here so why don't we? Good answer and we sat there. The sign doesn't mean anything like so many places in Vietnam, even though we were in the temple haha.

We made it up to the top and down to the Huong Tich Cave but not the normal way that I used to climb up the mountain which took over an hour and a half. We took a cable car this time and it took us only 5 minutes for only 60,000VND return and I could see the whole beautiful area around. I know you may think we are so lazy not to climb up the mountain but I wanted to try the new technology and I quite like it. We walked down into Huong Tich Cave and I couldn't believe my eyes; the small cave was so packed, it was hard to move around. Hundreds of people, Vietnamese, Japanese and western people who don't care about the heat tried to reach the altar inside the cave just to make a wish. I was sweating myself and finally I reached the place and got out again.

Most people spend hours inside trying to get some water and pray for their future life. Maybe I am the only Vietnamese who came here as a tourist but I did make a quick wish and it took me two minutes. I really don't believe in god but I do believe in myself and believe in what I see and what's reality. It's good to dream but only in bed :). On the way out, we stopped at Thanh Son Pagoda to take a fortune paper which told us what will happen this year. Luckily, there was a lady in our group who is more serious about praying and wishing for everyone and she is also a fortune teller who could explain the papers to everyone. Thank god that I'm going to have a great year this year haha

I had such a great day with my friends and my new friends. I also learned alot from this trip. It cost me only 225,000VND for the whole trip which is really cheap.

Perfume Pagoda Part I

My friend Khai and his work colleagues invited me and my friend Cong to join their trip to the Perfume Pagoda last week. I've been there several times but I've always been with tour companies. This time I will try the trip Vietnamese style, praying and eating style. I had a great day!

We met up at the Metropole Sofitel Plaza at 5am which was very difficult for me but I made it on time :) Everyone looked very sleepy on the bus and we started our journey after picking up some more friends and food for both offering and eating. Mr Huy, the chef at the Zephyr Hotel, worked really hard preparing the food. My friends told me that this is not a really busy time to visit after two months of pagoda festivals but I still saw thousands of people there and most of them arrived earlier than us meaning they must have left their homes atabout 1 am or 2am or they stayed over night there.

Perfume Pagoda is such a beautiful place which reminds me of Tam Coc with amazing scenery along the river. You sometimes can hear peoples' laughing echoing backwards and the sound of the lady who's paddling at the back. It's so peacful and so nice to be there and I realized why people visit as their first place to pray for luck and happiness in the New Year.

After 5 minutes on the boat, we arrived at the first Pagoda called Trinh Temple. People told me that if you go to the Perfume Pagoda, you have to stop at this temple to register your name like checking in to a hotel. A bit strange, don't you think? We stayed there for almost an hour to prepare food, flowers and money on the trays then we got back on the boat heading to the main cave. There are also many people who can help you to carry your stuff and write your wishes in Chinese characters. There was a very nice traditional women's band which sings the whole day and people just give them small change. There are a full range of services here at this very holy temple!

To be continued

Ngoc Son Temple

Ngoc Son Temple is located on a small island right in the middle of Hoan Kiem Lake(Lake Of The Restored Sword) which is also considered the center of Hanoi. One special feature around the entrance to the Tam Quan ("Three Passage Gate") is that there are poems which are written on each pillar.

This is one of the most common stops for tourists who walk past. The temple is such a peaceful place in this busy city and is also popular for photographers, amateur and professional. The mix of the temple and the lake is very attractive.

Nowadays, there are a few giant tortoises still living in the lake and sometimes they come up to the surface of the water for a very short time which attracts the attention of tourists and local people. The locals say:" If you see those giant tortoises then you will be lucky for a year". I am such an unlucky man. I've never seen them.

If you ever come to Hanoi, I think you should walk in and put a stick of insense on the altar to wish your family, your friends and whoever you love good health, success and wealth in life.