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

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

The king’s dedication from hundreds of years ago

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

Kinda hot today…

So I just took it a little easier than normal. A walk to mail some postcards, a long FB chat, some reading, then a show at the Hanoi Opera House.

Also I hemmed my pants. It only took me 5 weeks to get around to it lol.

Here’s todays pictures…

Every day there’s folks over there eating something. I’ll go.get whatever it is tomorrow. It’s always busy, so….can’t be bad.

I was really only here to look inside. That’s not okay, so, luckily, a ticket for whatever was cheap enough

You can see the pollution situation isnt good. Too many cars and motorcycles.

TripAdvisor told me the sandwiches here were good. They were!

Very well-maintained, 1911 was the opening

The performance had live music. There’s like 12 different mouth harps there!

Only about 50 people came, you can tell it’s off season

The performances were great, musicians and actors. It wasn’t just acrobatics, the director got some culture stuff in there too. The main guitarist (?) guy was so good. Also some great singing.

Goodnight all

Walked a lot…

Today and I can feel it!

The bus wouldn’t pick me up for some reason. It wasn’t just me, several other folks looked very confused.

I just walked there….lol. Terrible idea.

At long last my destination was reached. So worth it! A great museum, some temples, a new friend later…I am exhausted.

I was luck to find this one open. A lot of these temples are closed all the time

This temple is in the jewellery district, so I’m confused by the silk stuff

Someone clearly takes good care of the place, the birds aren’t dead

At the start of my long walk, haven’t had this kind of little dog sighting yet

This is the University Temple. A Confucian temple, it’s dedicated to those that follow his teachings, including the importance of education

The gardens were great. You need someplace to walk when you’re in deep thought

These are the names of those men who earned degrees, their names borne to heaven on a sacred turtle

It’s pretty old, a lot of the bonsai were quite large

A little grotesque? Also, tortoises aren’t turtles

This place is really good for graduation photos

This is something presented to the leader of the school

After more walking, I stumbled across this. Looks communist

And it was, the mausoleum and museum of Ho Chi Minh. I didn’t go in, he’s in russia, getting fixed up. His corpse, I mean

A little bit further, the One Pillar Pagoda

Lots of offerings, and in very good repair

I didn’t wait in line to see what there was inside

This is where people prayed who were in a hurry

Even a bit further down the road, this surprise. A downed b52 museum

The real deal. The VC were and are very proud

So if I’m with you and ever just say, ” f*** it, lets just walk there”… the answer is no. Just, no

The museum of ethnology has three parts. A bunch of cool stuff from all over SE asia, an outdoor area, and an area concentrated on the peoples of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos

Indonesian glass paintings are super neat

Outside now, this boat won a bunch of races

Water puppet theater. Ill try to see one if I can, it looks cool

Each one of these houses was built on site by the ethnic group that it represents. A video was on loop inside that showed how it was built from dirt to rooftop

This is for the *second burial. After one year, important folks were reburied

These colorful folks decorate the burial chamber of another culture, this one would hold dozens of the deceased

This was my favorite, the people would just make the building longer and longer when new people joined the family. Some old homesteads were 200 meters long

Bamboo pieces, this is religious equipment

I dont even like Coke, but this Coke was ambrosia

Home now, and walking after dinner. The vending machines always had a line. A novelty?

Finally dark, and I can go home now. I met a gal named Dep. We talked for a while. She also quit her job, was taking a trip, and looking for a change in her life. Felt good to really talk to someone

Very satisfactory day…

Hit a couple of museums, lunch and dinner were very good (pho of course), and a great after dinner walk around. Somewhere in there I had the most spectacular nap.

Here’s todays pictures…

Pretty close to my hostel is an (the only) original section of city gate

I was here pretty early, usually its crawling with tourists

Im constantly reminded of the ruling political party

There were blocks of folks selling fake flowers

This neighborhood is focused on building materials

I’m surprised and pleased that so many trees are left on the streets.

Looks fancy, right? Well, it’s a prison built by the French to brutally punish political prisoners in their occupation of Vietnam

An actual section of sewer that several prisoners escaped through

It doesn’t really show, but the concrete slab is angled backwards, so that when the prisoners passed waste it would run back up their bodies. Thanks, the French!

The actual guillotine that the French used to execute several men (and women (?)

A nice little courtyard with altar. A lot of the offerings were packs of cigarettes

Some of the prisoners that survived went on to become prominent party members

Now once the French left the country, the communist party took over the prison and used it for their own political prisoners, as well as American POWs. John McCain was held here I believe ?