Today we had scheduled a tour to the Perfume Pagoda. At 8am, the bus came to get us. Turns out we were the only tourists for the day. Our guide was Son (pronounced Suhn, meaning mountains).
Morning traffic
After struggling through some disorganization, we finally arrived at a dock crammed with rows of small boats. Our oarsman ended up being an oarswoman... and we set off for a peaceful trip down the scenic Yen River.
A fishing eagle makes a catch from the water.
Disembarking
Our oarswoman .... and our guide, Son
Perfume Pagoda (Chua Huong) is the name of a collection of Buddhist temples which are considered very sacred. It was an extremely long, hot, bumpy, crowded climb. The trip is about 2.5 miles. Apparently there was a cable car currently under construction.
There were not many foreign tourists at all. Instead there was a large number of older folks. The temple is said to possess healing powers.
Lots of vendors lined the path the entire way up the mountain. Very loud music and tv's blasted from everywhere.
Son enjoys a smoke. All the restaurants had free water pipes. You just have to bring your own tobacco.
We preferred freshly pressed sugar cane juice.
Passing a small temple.
We crested a ridge and got a view of a long staircase leading down into an large cave. This was Chua Trong (Inner Temple), which was nestled deep inside of Huong Tich, a limestone cave said to be the mouth of a dragon. The air was clouded thick with incense and the burning of fake money. Soot and ash drifted everywhere. It was exceedingly crowded!
Heading down into the cave
Inside the cave, it was dark and very slippery. People blatantly pushed others aside to get to the shrines at the back of the cave.
One of the statues was of the goddess Guanyin (or Quan Am in Vietnamese). Known as the Goddess of Mercy, she is often depicted as having a thousand arms and a thousand eyes. According to our guide, when she was alive, she had been renowned for her virtue. When the king heard this, he insisted on marrying her. She didn't want to, but to refuse the king was a death sentence. So instead, she had her eyes and hands removed and sent them to the king to serve him instead of marrying him. She was later rewarded by the gods with 1,000 of each.
We slipped our way to the other side of the cave as people frantically and violently pushed by. One large stalactite column was known as the "gold tree". If you rubbed money on it, it gave you riches. The "silver tree" to its left was for health. Water was dripping frorm the ceiling and a pile of people fought to catch a drop.
We made our way back out of the cave and to the long staircase.
We then began the long trek down and out. It was very hot! We took a break at a small restaurant.
Back down the mountain, we visited the stunning Thien Tru pagoda. Ash floated everywhere from burning offerings.
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