Tourism Trang An

Trang An tourism site takes you on a rowboat ride to ... (wait for it) ... more pagodas. With haughty gold-encrusted dudes in funny hats.

After a short hike from the boat landing into a hidden valley type of place, another pagoda. Altars complete with clementines, flowers, pomelo, small change, beer Hanoi and Choco-pie.

And the smiling-est horse ever, I think she's just glowing because of her new hairdo.

Bai Dinh - Raising the Roof

This shot shows something of the scale of this place, taken from near the top looking down along the outside of the covered stairway. You can see the bell tower near the bottom of the hill, and the main gate down by the lake.

Does that come with free ringtones??

Bai Dinh - the people

The 'plaza' in front of the largest building at the top of the mountain. It's basically just a big party.

Sadly, I'm not totally up to speed on Vietnamese deities, so I can't really tell you about this guy. But, while it seems he does have to carry around a few things, he did get the prime real estate of the whole place, on the very peak, and the view is amazing.

This is one of several massive bronze bells that were sitting around waiting to be hung somewhere I guess. Something tells me it's not so easy to get a good ring out of a bell like that, I hope they pay the guy well who has that job!

Yes those are drums - for part of the festival they had a procession which was accompanied by some drumming. Sadly, I don't think I can import one of those back to the US, although I'm sure it would look great sitting in the driveway ... maybe I could park my scooter inside it!

Bai Dinh Pagoda

Historic Bai Dinh Pagoda is near Hoa Lu, site of the capital of Vietnam before it was moved to Hanoi 1000 years ago (as of last October). There is still an old pagoda there, halfway up a mountain, a small wooden building which sits in front of a cave housing ancient statues, a mystical pond/puddle, some mesmerizing traditional musicians, and a lot of giddy teenagers. But, the main attraction is on the other side of the mountain where they are building a massive compound including three large temples housing the giant Buddhas you see above, a bell tower for a bell the size of a house (smallish house), a covered stairway that goes up the mountain on one side of the compound and back down on the other side, and various other buildings that aren't finished yet. It's really big, that's what I'm trying to say.

Vietnamese temples attract large crowds during 'festival season' in the spring. It seems that, as when judging sidewalk restaurants, people go to the crowded places because if there are that many people it must be worthwhile. Anyway, I was at Bai Dinh for the spring festival there, and since the place is so incredibly massive, while there were crowded spots, it wasn't hard to avoid the crush. These two pictures, I like to think, show the fluidity of motion in the crowd inside the pagodas, its sort of a swirling eddy motion as people come in and push up to the statues and then wiggle back out the same way. Or, all those blurry faces could just mean I have a cheap camera ...

The inside of all the main buildings and the outer wall along the walkways was lined with niches like this, each with its own Buddha statue. The cumulative effect reminded me of an old post office, and I kept looking in them to see if there was anything different about the next Buddha.

Ha Long: The Cruise

Ha Long Bay is one of the premier tourism destinations in Vietnam, for reasons which are obvious once you actually get to the place and have a good look at it. The famously chaotic dock where you get on your boat is not one of those reasons, but it can be fun none-the-less. The picture above is from one of the islands, looking back toward the dock at Ha Long City.

This above is the harvest at a "pearl farm" which is kind of a fascinating thing to farm, and no, there were no swine on the farm. Below are views from the top deck of the boat, where I spent most of my time. They call them "lounge chairs" for a good reason! Aside from taking in the scenery, the seafood was insanely delicious and the squid fishing highly amusing - if not terribly productive.

Boatloads of pictures from previous Ha Long trips are here.

Not long after my recent trip to Ha Long, sadly, a tourist boat sank there killing a number of tourists who were sleeping on board at the time. Considering that there are some 5 million people visiting Ha Long every year, this accident, while tragic, hardly makes the place a "dangerous tourist attraction" as noted by that most democratic of institutions, Wikipedia. Indeed, the van trip from Ha Noi down to Ha Long City makes even the ricketiest of boats seem like a welcome safe haven!

Buddhas and Other Muses

More from the Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum.

This guy, the ear-scratching guy, I think is my favorite of these pictures. Buddha statues come in all shapes and poses, but you can just see this one's expression saying, "Aaahhhhh." The following shot is part of a lacquer work. I like lacquer paintings, and the process to make them is just too painstaking to think about.

And something entirely different:

Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum

Style, a pig with pure style! These are a few pictures from the Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum. This next shot is a woodprint from the village of Dong Ho which is famous for ... woodprints. I like woodprints, the Dong Ho ones are cool even if rather formulaic. This one is of Hai Ba Trung, plus an elephant, so it's got to be high on my list!



Galleries with windows are nice, but they do make for surprising pictures sometimes! And this below, I have no recollection of exactly what that was but I'm pretty sure it didn't happen naturally.



Here we have the "Tall Four Seasons on Silks and Short Wooden People on Pedestal" Gallery:

Street View

The corn wagon, fully equipped with a charcoal fire, a steamer, a big pile of sweet corn and an umbrella is always a welcome sight. The corn here is a bit more mealy and not quite as sweet as where I come from, but fresh steamed or roasted right there on the street, it still makes a delicious snack.



When you need a place to throw your corncob...


These clouds of balloons, laden down with bicycles, float all over Hanoi. Randomly, it seems. Disney World must be just around the corner!

Ghosts of Tet Past ...

Bite-sized Sunshine

For everybody out there enjoying that snowy season – take a good look at these pictures. Hopefully you can glean some vitamin D from them... Ridiculously small, fairly cheap (if you are friendly to the ladies selling them), and jumping-up-and-down sweet, these things are addictive. I'll give you some, but you better get here fast!