I was very fortunate this past to see much of Ninh Binh because my Education Ministry rep, Mr. Nghe, took me to as many sights as we had time for. The first day, Tuesday, we drove to Kim Son district on this incredibly bad road. We were also going right at rush hour 7:00 am so the traffic was incredible, trucks, buses, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, all trying to avoid potholes, so large enough to cover the whole road. The 30 km distance took us 45 minutes. This area is Catholic, so there were European style churches everywhere. Quite a surprise after all the pagodas I have seen. In the town of Phat Diem is a famous church that was the setting for Graham Greene's novel The Quiet American. It is a Catholic Church that incorporates pagoda designs. Quite incredible.
In Tam Diep, I was taken to a new development on the lake, a 54 hole golf course. They have hit a snag because the locals don't want to move. I don't blame them. These are their family farms, on a beautiful lake with green mountains in the backyard, who would want to move. A full resort and water activities is in the plan as well. I think they are also going to improve the roads. To get across the lake we drove across a cement bridge, just wide enough for the taxi. The bridge was also slightly underwater most of the way and the driver had to guess where the potholes were. He was a great driver!
In Gia Vien I got to see the largest Buddha in Asia. This is a new development as well and is expected to be completed in 2010. Right now they have 2 almost finished pagodas, one houses 3 very large Buddhas and one with the largest Buddha. The plan is put many more pagodas with Buddhas and they have hundreds of cast Buddhas off to the side, just waiting for a home. It started to rain heavily as we left. Unfortunately the new road is in the construction state, which means it is very treacherous driving at the best of time. Most of the people on motorcycles parked under a tunnel to wait out the storm, so we had the road to ourselves and could drive on whatever side looked the best and no one gave us the horn.
On the weekend I went to Tam Coc with other Canadian volunteers. Tam Coc is a beautiful river trip in a small boat. We were rowed down the river, under two tunnels of limestone rock, into the karsts of Ninh Binh. Very lovely.
No comments:
Post a Comment