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.

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.