Perfume Pagoda tour…

And wasn’t the weather perfect?

I was picked up pretty much on time, and we were off like a herd of turtles. The road to the park area is kinda shitty and windy. Still, air-con makes every road trip a pleasure.

Our first activity was to sit and enjoy a boat ride. No problem! I love boats, and the breeze was delightful. Luckily, I was in the guide boat, so we got a commentary.

Lunch, was followed by a cable car ride. Yay! I love both of those things!

It’s the off season, so none of the shops lining the path are open. Even better. Some of these Vietnamese ladies reaaaaly know the hard sell game.

It gets so much better when we get to the first temple…it’s in an amazing cave. Wow is all I can say.

During the festival season, there are thousands of visitors per hour. Today, there’s so few of us they turned off the cable car until all of us were ready to come off the mountain lol.

At the bottom, another very fine temple. 

And another boat ride. This time I had an interesting discussion about us politics, how surprising!

A quiet van ride back to the city.

What a good day.

That’s a tomb. The guide confirmed that the tomb will be used by a series of family members. The deceased are left alone for 3 years.

The air was positively divine, compared to the city

There were spaces for hundreds of boats.
You could spend a week crawling around up here looking at temples
One of the few open shops, selling souvenirs and Vietnamese medicine

I’m thinking…..I hope it gets better
I mean, really better

That’s more like it!!!!
Imagine 2000 people in here, so many that they pray from the plaza outside. No room to move even an inch
This is the stalagmite where you pray for a boy

Poems in Chinese writing
The king’s dedication from hundreds of years ago
Get your baby girls here

The main altar

And this is the dry season. How green is it in summer??

A monastery is here, it could be why the temple is in such great shape

These mythical beasts guard the hall of mothers

Did you know poinsettias could get this big??

This guy is herding cattle on a bicycle lol

The idea is that buddhists have to do good on a pilgrimage. So they pay to have birds and etc set free. these poor creatures have probably been captured repeatedly 

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