On Friday I took a tour to the Perfume Pagoda in an a/c minibus with 10 others. We drove outside Hanoi for 2 hours, then we got into these very tiny flat bottomed canoe type boats. We were 4 tourists and a woman rower per boat. We did this for an hour down this lazy river. I thought of Faith!!
It was very hot, and I had forgotten to bring my umbrella. Once we stopped we had to take a gondola to the top of the mountain, climb up and down stairs into the pagoda which was in a limestone cave. The pagodas have figures of people, I'm not sure who they are. We did not get a good translation. Vietnamese people go to Perfume Pagoda and pray for a "son". It is very busy at Tet, but there weren't many people when we went.
Then I walked down with 2 guys from Australia. I think we all lost 5 lbs from sweating. We then had lunch. This consisted of rice, fish, beef with vegetables, springrolls and mystery dish. It gets put in front of you, and you take how much you want. The meal finished with a tiny banana.
After lunch we went to another pagoda, This was a more traditional pagoda in that it was in a building with the sloping roof, dragons on top, and many different shrines/alters to the Buddha or whoever. In this pagoda, they had a sign to cover up and not take pictures. There was a priest to make sure people did. You also had to take your shoes off before you go in.
then got back into the boat, and back to Hanoi. The trip back to town was interesting. I saw them building a road by hand except for the rock crusher. Can't image how long that would take.
3 comments:
Hi Kate,
Glad to hear you made it safe and sound. Looking forward to reading your future blogs.
By the way did you try the mystery dish?
Hi Kate;
Nice to hear from you. Your adverture begins. I'll e-mail.
Connie
There are some place you should visit when coming to Perfume Pagoda: Yen stream, Thien Tru Pagoda and the highest is Huong Tich Grotto.
It was not mentioned in this post :)
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