Holy Temple

In the coldness of the drizzling rain, visitors from other regions rush to Dong Bang Temple in the northern province of Thai Binh to present offerings. The temple is located amid a vast paddy field by the Mai Diem River.
Dong Bang Temple was named one of the four ancient landscapes of the country in the Pre-Le Dynasty (980-1009 AD). From the end of 13th century, the temple has been a place to worship King Tran Hung Dao, royal members and famous generals of the Tran Dynasty, who three times defeated Mongol invaders.

The entire relic is a complex of temples, shrines and towers, which comprises the main temple for the king and five other temples for the mandarins. The whole relic covers an area of 11,000 square meters in An Le and Dong Hai communes. The temple to worship King Tran Hung Dao, who is regarded as a saint by the public, is not far from this complex.

These temples have many worshiping objects from the Ly to the Nguyen dynasties. Votive tablets and original wooden construction works such as horizontal lacquered boards, parallel sentences, scrolls and others are almost intact.

Dong Bang Temple starts the annual ceremony on the 20th day of the eighth lunar month, but it welcomes many groups of pilgrims and visitors almost all year round. After the opening day, villagers hold a solemn ritual, believing that all the saints would witness the boat race of local people. On the 22nd day, they organize swimming contests until the 25th day, and the winning teams will receive prizes. Apart from such competitions, there are also kylin dances, hát chèo (northern Vietnamese folk songs), wrestling and chess playing contests.

In addition to such rituals as offering to deities, burning incense and recreating old legends, the festivity also has folk games that attract the participation of quite a few pilgrims and visitors.

After six exciting days, the festivity ends with a solemn parade to carry the votive tablets of the King and saints back to Dong Bang Temple, and the locals pray for prosperity for the whole year.

An Islamic mosque in Muong Cha, Da Phuoc Commune, An Phuoc District, An Giang Province.

The Cham minority in An Giang Province, who are mostly Islamic followers, are often called by many names such as Chàm, Chà, Chà Và, Chà Và Ku, Chiêm Thành, Gia Va, Mã Lai, Khmer Islam, Champa, Chm, Chm Bàni, Chm Islam, Chm Chuk, Chm Kaphir or Chm Jet. But Cham people do not like to be called Chà Và, which probably comes from Java, an Indonesian island, because they consider it racial discrimination.

Their Islamic mosques in An Phu District are the most unique features. The Masjid Jamius Sunnah Mosque is greatly admired thanks to its original architecture with the dome like a prominent garlic in the sky. Masjid is a place of worship for followers of Islam while Cham people consider it a name that Allah (God) put in the Koran. And Jamius Sunnah means beautiful things.

Most of Islamic mosques are decorated with paintings or carvings of Arabic characters or sentences from the Koran to honor Allah. The mosque has a lecture hall covered by a carpet. Iman, the head of the mosque, will stand next to the hall to host ceremonies such as weddings, funerals or other important rituals of Cham Moslems.
Before attending a ritual, followers must wash their faces, hands and feet carefully in accordance with the Sambayang rules, and tidy up their attire. According to the Islam, those with a clean body and well-dressed attire will be accepted by Allah when they pray in the mosque.

Muong Cha is also famous for brocade weaving and the popular workshop which most tourists choose to visit is owned by Tares, 75, who pursued this traditional craft more than half a century ago. Crossing a 500-meter-long wooden bridge and travelers will arrive at the shop that they can buy brocade products for souvenirs such as scarves, hats, handbags and sarong, among others.

At the end of the bridge are two Cham-style boats, and on the bank of the Da Phuoc River is a Cham house on stilts. Every day, locals cast the net to catch fish in the river, which is a main job of Cham people in the flooding season. Thanks to this job, their income is better and their living condition is thus improved. Visitors, especially foreign tourists, are very excited about contemplating the daily life of the locals.

Can Gio fishermen

Located by the East Sea coast and 50 kilometers southeast of the downtown of HCMC, Can Gio District has many things for tourists to discover, from rivers to mangrove forests and the life of locals, especially fishermen.

To visit Can Gio from the city center, tourists can choose to take either a car or a speedboat at Bach Dang Quay in District 1. If they go by car, they will stop to take a speedboat at the quay at Dan Xay Bridge. The speedboat will bring them to sightsee the riverscape, the typical flora of salinity-intruded forests and to study fishing methods of Can Gio fishermen. During the tour, visitors will have opportunities to discover diverse things and participate in different activities of locals.

First, travelers together with local fishermen will row a boat to place traps under the water for catching sea-crabs. While waiting to collect the traps, they will row a smaller boat around in the mangrove forest to visit Doi Nghe Conservation Park and return to the former place to collect the traps after 30 minutes. Local fishermen will show tourists how to choose crabs with good flesh and tell them about the world of crabs. Tourists can grill the crabs to eat on the spot or enjoy dishes from these crabs at lunch.

To continue the journey, tourists must get on board a wooden boat to go for studying how fishermen of Vam Sat, an area in Can Gio, dive to catch oysters. Diving to catch oysters is among the characteristic fishing methods of local fishermen. Tourists will also see how oysters are raised, catch and grill oysters to eat on the spot. They can of course join the farmers to catch the oysters.

Emptying a pond to catch fish by draining its water is also an interesting activity for tourists to experience. To join the work, they are provided a set of bà ba (a traditional southern-style costume) and a nm (a fishing instrument made of bamboo). They step down into the pond and use a tin can to empty the water before catching the fish.
Another way of catching fish is to cover an area with nets. About four people walk into a pond, use a net to surround an area with fish, and pull the net ashore to catch the fish.

Tourists can also join local people in producing salt from seawater. They can roll up their trousers and step into the salt field to rake the salt and shoulder the salt to cottages on the shore. In addition, tourists can join in planting mangroves to expand the coverage for forests. Employees of Vam Sat Ecological Resort will instruct tourists how to plant the trees.

To experience strong sensations, vacationers can feed crocodiles in challenge. They fix a bait to the fishing line and stand on the boat in midstream to hold the rod and “fish” crocodiles. If they stay overnight at the resort, they can join local people to hunt for ba khia (a species of crab with three stripes on their back), grill fish to eat and sing songs by a camp fire.

The tour price ranges from VND850,000 to VND1,150,000 each depending on the number of people in a tour.

The appearance of so many monkeys in one area behaving without fear of humans follows the patient work in recent years of workers at the Centre for Cave and Park Conservation under the Ha Long Bay Management Committee. Luon Cave is not the only place in the bay inhabited by monkeys, but their concentration there is a big tourist drawcard.

To lure the animals to the site, workers started offering them food, later allowing tourists to feed them. Before that, the simians had to forage for food on their own. They have also become more tame through their contact with people. According to Hoang Van Hanh, deputy director of the conservation centre, about 60 rhesus monkeys live in or around Luon Cave. “Four years ago, there were only about 10 at any one time – and they were often trapped and ill-treated by local people,” Hanh said.

This all changed after the centre began to supervise the area to stop the hunting of monkeys. The centre’s staff also banned the use of motor boats, which disturb the ecosystem. The centre also protects the animals by making sure that tourists do not tease or harm them.

The number of monkeys living in the cave has risen to about 60. The cave has become a safe haven. More and more the monkeys congregate inside the tourist area, knowing that they are safe from hunters. Up to 500 people a day now visit the monkey cave either by boats or by kayak.

Nguyen Dac Van, an employee at the centre, said the monkeys had made the cave their home – and a top attraction. He said, however, that it was not always easy to keep control of them, because they tended to roam when fruit was in season. This exposed them to illegal hunters who were answering a demand for fresh monkey meat.

To help ferry the tourists to and from the island, the centre has hired 11 residents from Bo Nau floating fishing village to work as boatmen. This provides them with an extra income.

The same system of attracting monkeys to a central tourist location is now being used to put the many iguanas in Ha Long Bay on show. The centre has now come up with the idea of feeding iguanas from nearby Me Cung Lake to attract them to a nearby grotto of the same name. It may take months, or even years, to get the co-operation of the reptiles, but the centre’s staff are patient.

“Maybe it will take some time, but I will continue to feed them regularly,” said Nguyen Van Thu, one of the guards at the centre.

Ha Long Bay in northern Quang Ninh Province recently has been recognised twice as a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site and has been voted one of the seven new Natural Wonders of the World.

Halong bay

H'mong People

“Even if they buy the yarn at a local market, they still typically weave and embroider the fabric themselves”, according to the People of the World Foundation, which promotes education for and about indigenous peoples, in an article published on http://www.peoplesoftheworld.org.

H’mong clothing, especially the women’s, shows their hard-working character, cleverness and sense of beauty, it says.

Red is used extensively because the H’mong believe the colour is the symbol of strength, happiness and luck and also guards against evil.

Against an indigo background, the collar and sleeves of a H’Mong woman’s dress are embroidered with splendid patterns. The pleats of the skirt symbolise her native mountains, and the patterns are said to follow the ancient H’mong calligraphy. Other patterns come from nature – images of crops, domestic animals, the moon and the sun. Fabrics are also adorned with small silver beads or bells.

The H’mong grow the hemp that provides the raw material of the fabric, and raise their own silkworms for the embroidery thread. According toVietnam’sMuseum ofEthnology, H’mong girls are taught to do all these things by their mothers from the age of six or seven. The embroidery is done in their spare time in the evenings, while they are watching the buffaloes grazing or doing other farm work – which is elderly H’mong women have weak eyesight. It usually takes a month of continuous work to complete a dress, or up to six months if the girl does it only in her free time.

On the mornings of spring markets, the girls don their best clothes as they are likely to meet boys there. If a boy fancies a girl, he will edge up close to her and tear a thread or a bead off her dress. If she welcomes his attentions, she will come back to the market to meet him at night. After that a wedding may well take place, according to a report by Nguyen Duc Thinh from the Institute for Traditional Culture Research.

When the bride finally goes to the groom’s home, her wealth and social position are indicated by the quality of the dress her mother made for her. According to Dr.Thinh, this dress is a H’mong girl’s most valuable possession. She keeps it carefully and wears it for her funeral, so that her mother will be able to recognise her in the next world.

The Cham people in An Giang live mainly in Tan Chau, Phu Tan and An Phu districts in Chau Doc city, along the banks of the Chau Giang river, the second biggest town at the headwaters of the Hau river. The Cham people live and work under the creed of Islam, which is best shown in their wedding customs.

Strangers are very rarely invited to a Cham wedding. But I am a friend of a Chairwoman of the Womens Association in Chau Phong commune of Tan Chau district, so I was invited to attend the wedding of her relative. This was the first time I had attended a wedding of the Cham people and I was the only Kinh person at the wedding.

A wedding of the Cham people in An Giang lasts for three days. The bride and groom decorate their house on the first day. The rituals to prepare the groom and the bride to enter family life are held on the second day. The third day is the most important. The wedding is held in the mosque and the groom goes to the bride’s house.

Rituals for the groom in the mosque

The tea party and singing performances last until 1 a.m., and in the early morning all the people in the groom’s party are present to attend the ceremony. At 6 a.m., everyone, all dressed in formal costume, accompany the groom in traditional Cham costume to the mosque. There are only men (women are not allowed in the mosque) and three children carrying three boxes. In the boxes are betel, areca and lime in the first box, rice and salt in the second box, cakes and fruit in the third box. The groom is shaded from the sun with a colorful parasol over his head. Villagers rush to attend the ceremony and noisily discuss it. The groom is taken to the mosque on foot, not by motorbike or by car.

On the way to the mosque, flutes or drums are played and people sing together. On arrival at the mosque the groom sits opposite to the bride’s father. There are two elders, who lead a very moral life, who witness the ceremony. An imam reads from the Koran, telling the groom about the responsibilities of a husband under Islamic regulations. Then the bride’s father shakes the groom’s hand and says: “I marry my daughter, Mahriem to you, Sarol, with I tael of gold and 5 million”. After that everyone prays for the good health and happiness of the couple. The ceremony lasts for only about 15 minutes in the mosque.

Taking the groom to the bride’s house

The Cham people in An Giang follow matriarchal customs, so they take the groom to the bride’s house, instead of taking the bride to the groom’s house as the Kinh people do. From the mosque, the groom is taken to the bride’s house. Here everyone stands on the ground, then one person of the bride’s family comes to take the groom to the bride’s room.

The wedding room is beautifully decorated. There are three children holding three boxes in their hands who accompany the groom. The bride is beautifully made up and dressed in traditional costume. She sits on the bed, waiting for the groom. On entering the room, the groom sits next to the bride and places three boxes in front of her. Frankincense is burnt. The women and girls in the bride’s family pray for happiness for the newlyweds.

At this time, the groom takes one of three long haipins from the bride’s hair then puts them in her hand. This shows that the bride is now his wife. Then the groom changes into dress provided by the bride and comes out of the room to greet the bride’s family. After that, they return to the groom’s family. The bride goes with an aunt of the groom’s family to greet the relatives (the aunt come to the bride’s family before the groom gets there).

After taking the groom to the bride’s family, the groom and the groom’s family return home.

By this time, the guests are all present. The mother greets the female guests and the father greets the male guests. The guests will a sum of money to share the happiness with their family. Then everyone prays and enjoys the feast. The menu of the feast includes rice, beef and sour vegetables (onion, pickled scallion heads, ginger, red cabbage and white cabbage) and salted lemon with pepper, which is the traditional food of the Cham people who follow Islam. According to Islamic regulations, the Cham people are not allowed to drink wine. Their feast is very simple and finishes quickly, unlike the wedding feast of the Kinh people.

That evening, four female elders of the groom’s family take the groom to the bride’s house. The wedding night is spent here and is the final stage in a Cham wedding. After three days, the groom’s family brings many useful things to the newlyweds for their life together. On the next night, two women in the bride’s family go with the newlyweds to visit the groom’s parents. The parents give the bride money and jewelry. The bride’s parents also give money or jewelry, like the groom’s family. Then their life together as a married couple begins.

Tri thought of taking his ostrich meat to markets, restaurants and supermarkets. However, a two-year-old ostrich weighs more than 150kg; its skin is reserved for tanning and its meat weighs about 40kg – but he didn’t know how to deal with the remainder, so he gave the tendons, bones, heads, necks and legs to the poor people in his neighbourhood.

Then he had the idea of making ostrich noodle soup. First he tried it on his family and friends; the more they ate, the more they liked it. So he went to Saigon to open an eating house serving the dish.

Directing me to the restaurant, the xe om remarked to his friend: “Look, people come from all over to eat ostrich noodles – we are right here but have never even tasted it!” Like these two, other locals had also heard about it but were put off by the price. At VND27,000 – VND37,000, it costs half the price of a bowl of Japanese noodle soup in the city centre, and twice the price of Tau Bay noodle soup in Cho Ca-Ly Thai To, a popular address in Saigon.

Anyone who appreciates noodle soup but has never tasted this style may well ask: “What does it taste like? Surely it’s nothing like either beef or chicken”.

All they can do is go to Thien Lam 7 restaurant to try it. Like any noodle soup, a bowl of it on the table looks very attractive. Containing well-cooked ostrich fillet and tendon, it suits the Saigonese palate since it also includes fresh bean sprouts, mint and red and black bean paste.

Above all, it’s very low in fat. The broth is always clear, making it suitable for the elderly and others who have a dread of the fat invariably seen in a bowl of beef or chicken pho.
Trying to persuade the choosy Vietnamese people to try something as outlandish as this is not easy. However, if that was always true no one would ever dare to introduce a new dish – so everyone would just eat traditional noodle soup forever. Now Saigon has ostrich noodle soup, so try it!

Thien Lam 7: 54 Truong Dinh St., D.1, HCMC
Tel: (08) 822-5121

As a military base for many armies during wars over the past two centuries, Ham Ho, in the central province of Binh Dinh, is a series of springs, waterfalls, lakes, rivers and canals stretching nearly 2km along the Kut River.

The water lies between two rocky mountains coloured green with trees, some of which are enormous with along branches stretching out over the calm waters.

Gusts of wind spread the scent of wildflowers and whip up small waves that hit the sides of the boat-a strangely calming sensation.

Our boat landed at a point known as the Buffaloes’ Muddy Pond. Huge “buffaloes” of rock with backs smoothed by water flowing over and eroding them made an ideal place to have a rest after our long journey in the small boat. From the backs of the rocks we were able to admire beauty in every direction.

My friend pointed to a group of rocks in the distance. “They look like spears ready for battle”, my friend said. We walked over to Bong Trang (moon shadow) waterfall, which splashed into a pool, raising thick foam and forming a pretty rainbow.

Violets and orchids of many shades sprang from cracks in to rock and moved in the wind, making reflections in the glassy water. Smooth white boulders lay in the bright sun like giant pearls, sparkling.

The white beach glittered in the sun but its heat seemed to be tempered by the clear blue water. Schools of fish were swimming in the stream, fearlessly oblivious of the visitors who had set foot in Ham Ho for the first time.

Trekking along beside a spring whose water noisily poured down into the lake, our feet were covered by its delicious chill. We jumped into the water and then lay down on the rocky sides of the spring to let the water massage every part of our bodies.

Half-hidden in the forests of trees and rocks are stilt-houses where visitors can stop for a rest. Fish is the food speciality here; Ham Ho has a great variety. In the rainy season, fish from the Con River move upstream to lay their eggs. According to legend, fish would gather here every year to jump up the waterfall; those that succeeded would turn into dragons. That’s why it is known as Flying Fish Waterfall.

The old man who was our guide told us about another local speciality, a dish of red ants’ eggs.

As the sun went down, we set off in our wooden boat down the stream. The boatman told us a secret: “If you want to explore the beauty of Ham Ho, you should stay overnight, sleep in Eden Garden and walk on to Doc Waterfall and Trao Rock the next morning”. However, we decided to postpone that until our next visit. It would give us an excuse to return to Ham Ho.

Getting there: Travel 40km from Qui Nhon city to the town of Phong Phu in Tay Son district, Binh Dinh province. Head south-west for another 7km and you will arrive at Ham Ho.