Visit to Pagodas and Mausoleums

Written by Aya:

Visit to Pagodas and Mausoleums

We woke up a bit earlier than usual and prepared for a boat ride on Perfume River and the many temples and mausoleums we would be visiting throughout the day. The boat captain greeted us at our hotel and led us to the docks, where we boarded onto a small and comfortable boat with a colorful dragon head at the front. We first visited the Thien Mu Pagoda, which in 1963 became famous in the West after a monk burned himself in Saigon after worshipping every story, he was protesting the South Vietnamese Governments mistreatment of Buddhists. We strolled around the temple and gazed at the colorfully painted statues of three very regal and fierce looking guardians, whose aggressive and disdainful expressions looked down at us as we made our way through a crowd of little monks-in-training. After spending a short time there, we went back to the boat, on to the next temple.

We left the boat and walked up a small pathway, up many steps to see a much smaller, elegant temple. This temple was much less elaborate than the first, it had small stone statues all adorned with offerings and incense. We spent the time there taking photos (there was a beautiful view of Perfume River) and examining the statues, before making our way back to the boat, this time headed for a mausoleum.

The mausoleum Ming Mang was very large. Most of the buildings were painted red, with many steps leading from one section to the next. There were three bridges over vast, cloudy lakes that lay in between each temple. We spent a longer time walking around, admiring the very intricate and elaborate architecture of the mausoleum, the abundance of small yellow butterflies, and the pink and purple flowers that grew from lily pads resting over the water. We gathered at one of the bridges, and headed towards a new mode of transportation, a large white van that would take us to lunch. After lunch, we went to the Tu Doc mausoleum. This one had large stone temples, all gray and scattered around a grassy hill where yellow flowers had freshly fallen from barren trees. We made our way up oversized stone steps and over bridges. The architecture here was somewhat simpler than the first, but the atmosphere was overall more relaxed and yet equally impressive.

Afterwards, we took the van to a small conical hat-making shop. We were seated on tiny chairs, and crowded around a woman who sat on the floor with an array of materials in front of her. We watched her make a traditional conical hat, also called poetry hats because when they are held up to the sun, you can see a series of images. Our woman hat-maker was born missing her right arm beyond the elbow so part of her demonstration was to show how a disabled person can adapt. Apparently she makes two each day, for approximately five dollars a day. After a few people bought recently made hats from her, we went back to the hotel and relaxed until dinner. For dinner we went to a French bistro, taking a break from only Vietnamese food, then went back to our rooms for some much-needed sleep.