Smelly Temples

Sunday.

Well what can I say. A beautiful day for a gentle cruise down the river to see the Perfumed Pagoda. 

Doesn't that conjure images of a serene eastern scene with beautiful flowers pumping scent into the mountain air surrounding a majestic towering templey edifice shrouded with clouds of incense and buddhist mysticism.

The reality is just a little different, but I'll get to that later.

Everyone woke bright and early looking forward to an exciting day of adventure with river boats, cable cars and mystical mountain temples. Ruby felt a bit crook and skipped breakfast. We nabbed one of the fresh and crusty Vietnamese baguettes for her to gnaw on later.

This was an expensive trip, $30 a head, but we were assured it was a not to be missed experience.
We saved money by sharing a guide (i.e. a person, not a pamphlet) with some other people intent on the same experience; an American couple who had sold their house in the Colorado mountains and are doing the grey nomad thing around the world, and a Vietnamese couple who were on a pilgrimage to the temple.

We jumped on the bus at 8.30am and headed of through the busy rush hour traffic.  Yes, Hanoi has a Sunday rush hour. The bus trip out to the country was going to be a couple of hours long.

Ruby vomited after about half an hour, with no warning.  We had to pull over and the guide diligently watched as the driver washed the vom from the floor. Noodles and, of course, carrots, but shredded rather than diced. Strangely, that was not the last meal Ruby has eaten, so maybe noodles are the Vietnamese equivalent of carrots.

A small plastic vom bag, was found by Kyra and we got back in to resume our adventure.

One interesting fact divulged by our guide, is that there is a 400% government tax on new cars. Please don't let Julia Gillard and her greens hear about that one. This explains the plethora of Scooters. These are all Japanese because the much cheaper Chinese scooters only last two years.  Japanese last 10-20!

So by now it was time for Ruby to fill the vom bag. A new one was kindly donated by the pilgrims.

A long and fairly boring bus ride ensued. We went through the shoe village, where everything shoe related was ahappening. It was interesting to see some more out of the way places, but there was nothing where communism was bringing Vietnam into the 21st century.

To bring a bit of excitement and tension into the proceedings, Ruby filled the second vom bag; the reason for the tension was that we had run out of waterproof plastic bags. We had to make it to our destination before another gastric event occurred.

Fortunately we made it and were treated to a quick freshen up in the drop toilets before heading down to the river for our sedate cruise to the temple. It would be unkind to say the effluent made it to the river before us; it was mostly cleanish.

There was some concern expressed when the guide tried to squeeze all eight of us into a boat with six seats. We split up with Jonah and I sitting in with the nomads and pilgrims.
Whilst all this was happening a local was trying to make us buy beer from her. "Too early" we said, "you remember me, you buy later" says she.

We were then rowed 4km down the languid river by sturdy peasant women who apparently have nothing better to do because their husbands are out working in the paddies. This was a bit strange because I've seen about eight people working in paddy fields since we came to Vietnam. That's what they tell their wives I guess.

Ruby seemed to perk up a bit on the boat trip which was good news.

We arrived at the dropping off point and disembarked. Apparently in high season this place receives 50k pilgrims, a, day. That would explain the cattle pen style railings around the corner, but we were dropped outside a seedy looking cafe, presumably to try and make us buy drinks, which were notably absent compared with other trips we've paid for where they were provided gratis.

So we followed our guide around past the pilgrim pens and up the hill towards the cable car.

Both sides of this path were lined with market stalls. Most of them were closed because this was an out of season Sunday, but the hassle factor was still very evident and they even set up temporary fences to channel the visitors closer to the stalls that were open.  I never met the guy, but I don't think Budda would be particularly proud of the rank commercialism going on in his name.
Jonah even got charged 2000 dong for using a drop hole toilet. We told him to pee in the bushes in future.

On the way up there was an interesting looking temple which we were forbidden to go near by the guide. Exciting! Secret forbidden temples, thought I.

So we got to the cable car place where Ruby promptly vomited again thanks to the exertion of the climb.
To say it was a little run down and in need of a spruce up and a lick of paint would be an understatement. It was dirty as well (for a start, there was a small puddle of vomit on the floor) and with a guy in the corner smoking a bong, it didn't give the impression that this was going to be a comforting place to stay. There were huge impressive adverts for mopeds, however. Very religiously inspiring. Budda on a bike. Probably not the first time that's happened in Vietnam though.

After an inordinate amount of time, we went upstairs to board the cable cars. Angela was starting to get feisty now with impatience. We had been wondering which european ski resort the cable cars would be from; as it turned out they were Austrian, but they did actually look reasonably new, which was reassuring.

This was the most exciting part of the trip as we were catapulted up the cable towards the Perfumed Pagoda. There was a panicked rush to leave the car as it didn't stop and we had to get out before the car went past another pilgrim cage designed to force 50k pilgrims back down the hill.

More stairs now and a sneaking suspicion that something wasn't quite right. There were no obvious signs of a pagoda, and the perfume wasn't the kind I was mentally associating with temples, but we pilgrimmed on towards the big reveal. We turned a corner and there was an ancient looking gateway with a long set of uneven granite steps, polished by the feet of countless pilgrims through the ages, leading down toward the cliff face.

Hang on, cliff face? Down?  Ah, so there's a cool tunnel we have to go through and on the other side is a pagoda, perched on the edge of a precipice overlooking the breathtaking countryside? Lead on McDuff! I've got my camera at the ready!

We got to the bottom of the stairway where the guide told us of the life of dedication that the monks of the pagoda have to follow, never ever leaving the pagoda. And he told us of the history and why it existed (there's another Perfumed Pagoda, but it was too far away and the king didn't want to take three months to go on a pilgrimage every year, so he got this one set up closer to Hanoi. Smart man).

We then descended into the clammy depths of the cave mouth. WTF? Are you kidding me? This. is. it? At the bottom of a short stairway are a couple of very tacky looking shrines to poor old Budda. No fancy building. No precipices. And definitely no perfume.   And some poor monk has to live here for the rest of his life? Sucked in big time dude.

Talk about a huge anticlimax. Angela was spewing (but not in the same way as Ruby.) She was ready to start punching! But the guide was about half her height and had already done a runner back up the stairs.

Ruby at this point was totally buggered poor thing. Jonah stepped up as the good big brother and piggy backed her back up the steps. They were big steps too.

We had already decided to take the cable car back down rather than walk because of Ruby's condition, which, of course cost more money. This was probably the cheaper option, because the route down was lined with more market stalls.

The nomads left on the path down while we waited for the cable car to restart to take us down for lunch. And we waited.  And we waited some more.  Angela was practically steaming at this point and was on the verge of breaking down the operators door and flicking the on switch herself, when they announced they were ready to go.

Everyone piled in and we zipped back down to the bottom, soundly beaten by the nomads, who were wondering where we had got to.

On the way to the lunch stop who should we meet? "remember me? You buy beer?" Indeed we did, but I did need that beer.

Lunch was pretty ordinary and I skipped outside with Ruby who was feeling sick at the smell of the food. There was a chair outside which I sat her on, only to be gesticulated at by a woman with wild unleashed hair. I indicated that Ruby was sick and she huffed and went back in to get another chair. Seems she was having her nits picked out in the one I had chosen.

...to be continued...my phone won't let me write any more in this post!