An Amazing Journey To The Perfume Pagoda

A very popular and important pilgramage for the Vietnamese is to visit the Perfume Pagoda. Now that the rice crop has been planted, many people have time to visit this shrine. The festival is actually 3 months long in its entirety. To reach it takes two hours by bus from Hanoi followed by a ride for 1 1/4 hours on one of 5000 (!) boats rowed mostly by women. These women demonstrate amazing strength rowing small metal boats with up to 30 people crowded into rowboats that ride right at water level. Rather than oarlocks, the oars are simple tied to a wooden stick. After the boat ride, we had lunch in one of may enormous restaurants on the site and then then took a cable car up a very steep mountain, went up and down countless uneven steps and descended into a huge cavern to find the shrine. Many people were worshiping, so we only took pictures from a distance. We walked down and the path was covered and lined with vendor after vendor.

People seemed to combine this spiritual event with a carnival-like celebration. There were restaurants and vendors lining the river front and entire path up the mountain. These folks sold prayer offerings, CDs of the pagoda, ancestor offerings (things a departed ancestor might be missing in the afterlife), and other things adults and children holiday might enjoy such as candy, speciality foods, t shirts or even plastic dolls that celebrate the importance of male children.
It was a memorable experience to see so many coming this long, and for many,expensive , journey to visit this Pagoda.

We meet our match on the streets of Hanoi.

This post is a bit backwards beginning with our death defying walk to dinner. After two weeks of surviving crossing the road, this evening we almost bought the farm! This first picture show the guys who wait for the red light,just before they go right AND left on red. Whew!!!! We went to a sort of street food food court where you order off a menu but the food is made at multiple stands within the restaurant. To eat this egg pancake you take a slice and roll in the rice paper with mint, basil, lettuce and cooked greens and dip it Ina sauce. Oh yeah, uh huh,
Saturday we spent the day at An Bang beach in Hoi An ( Someone forgot the camera) and then Sunday after one more trip to Ancient Town we flew to Hanoi.
Today we wandered around the old quarter, which is tiny, narrow streets selling everything you can imagine from knock off Gap clothes to incredibly beautiful embroidered silk pictures that sell for $4000 American. Check out the Buddha shrine on top of a house. Yes, those are stairs with a movie on them- weird to walk up- ok coming down.
We went to the Women's Museum which was large and a very interesting look a the roles of women in the past and present in Vietnam. women have been fierce gorilla fighters through centuries of war and several Vietnamese societies are very matriarchal.
We took a walk around Haon Kiem Lake near our hotel and visited a beautiful pagoda there and staggered home for a quick rest before our death defying walk to dinner.
Hanoi is a busy, crazy city that keeps a tourist on her toes.
By the way, the Vietnamese men compete with one another as to who can own the birds with the most beautiful song. The birds are for sale lots of places and they do sing beautifully!

"Yummy" may mean more than you think

Today we went on a 41/2 hour foodies tour of Hoi An. Fantastic and lots of fun. Run by an ex-pat from Australia, this tour started at 7:30 AM with a market tour and proceeded to introduce us to Forty different Vietnamese foods. We followed him around town tasting the full spectrum from street foods to a special type of Hoi An noodle that uses water from a specific well and is cooked and sun dried 3 times before it is used ( photo of some drying).
These pictures tell only part of the story but should be in order. They include:
Saluting chickens and really fresh fish in the market
A lady cooking pancakes
The thick, jet black soup sold by a lady who also sells gasoline by the soda bottle full. (Black sesame soup)
The beautiful lady who makes a baguette speciality -remember that the French occupied for 100 years
The restaurant that was like a garage bay where we had the best pho ever(beef noodle soup with veggies)
The sample plate of spring rolls, wontons, and dumplings called white rose. We had these at the tasting room where we finished off the tour with about 10 restaurant type foods.
The variety of foods we tasted was incredible and the tastings were small enough that at the end of the tour we were full but not overstuffed.
We spent the afternoon chillin out an An Bang beach. an Bang is absolutely on the list for tomorrow as well.
What does "yummy" mean in Vietnamese you ask?? It means Horny.
Guess who still kept saying " this is so so yummy,"

The ancient ruins of My Son and a really bossy tour guide

Today we marched to the dictates of a very directive tour guide whose command of English was quite limited ( perhaps that was the reason he was always speaking very loudly and repeating himself a lot).
My Son was the worship site of the Cham people and was built in the 6th century before Angor Wat in Cambodia. The people were Hindu so the deities in the walls are Hindu and the writing of the Cham was Sanskrit. The ruins are very small compared to Angor Wat. And in very poor shape. Between Mother Nature, time, and frankly some bombing in the war there are few ruins standing. They are rebuilding and we have posted some photos of the process. The bricks were and are now glued together with a resin made from local trees. None of us could really understand our guide no matter how loudly and repetitively he spoke so most of us wandered over to different tour groups to listen.
The tour included lunch on a return boat ride and a visit to the island village where the locals make the carvings and some of the mother of pearl inlaid lacquerware sold in the market and around VietNam.
It was an interesting day defined by a strict schedule. " you return to the bus in 2 hours, 1-2 hours. Come back in t- w-o hours. Comeback to bus in 2, I say 2 hour"
Have you ever listened to some of us Americans speaking loudly to nonenglish speaking people.
Of course not! Yeah.
Last photo of lovely old village Hoi An.

Hoi An, the Ancient City and Foodie Paradise

Yesterday we took an easy day for market touring and relaxing by the pool. We really needed that day off!
Today we toured the ancient city, the many Tailor shops, and clothing stores. Yeah, we did spend a bit of money on a few articles of clothing but we passed on having custom made clothes or shoes. Once again, every time we stopped for a snack or meal it was fantastic!
In the ancient city, which reminded us a lot of Old St Augustine in Florida, we visited several "Chinese Assembly Halls". Although they look like temples or pagodas, they were actually assembly halls for special occasions. The halls are well guarded by scary dragon and people statues and the insides are ornate like a temple. The red coils are incense that families purchase and burn to honor someone and when you walk around, the ashes are occasionally dropping to the floor- or you head. Most of the ancient sites were houses and we go so caught up in shopping, we really did not do Ancient City justice.
Gary declined my offer to buy him a red silk tie with special insignia on it.
Last one is just the view from where we stopped for lunch.
Trip to the ancient ruins of My Son tomorrow.