Attractions
Kim Lien Pagoda :
The
pagoda is located on a tip end of a narrow strip of land jutting to Ho Tay
(West Lake). It is in Nghi Tam village on the bank of Ho Tay. Now the
village is part of Quang An village in Tu Liem district. The pagoda is
accessible only through a small earth path from the village. All the other
directions are surrounded by the body of water in Ho Tay. The unique
location of Kim Lien Pagada makes it look more serene. Visitors to the
pagoda are given a rare chance to enjoy the tran quillity and pastoral
solitude the place of sacred has to offer.
Legend
has it that in the 12th century princess Tu Hoa, daughter of King Ly Thanh
Tong led her ladies-in-waiting to this area. Together they cultivated
mulberry and reared silkworms to make silk. At later date a pagoda was
built right on the site and by 1771 it was named Kim Lien (Golden Lotus).
The architectural formation of the pagoda is made after the Chinese
character three, that is the pagoda has three lines of houses. Each of the
rooftop is divided into two layers to make it eighr folds in all.
President Ho Chi Minh's Residence :
Located in a large garden at the back of the Presidential Palace is a nice
road covered with pebbles and bordered with mango trees that leads to a
stilt house, Uncle Ho's residence and office from M ay
1958 until his death. The perfume of jasmine flowers and roses is
omnipresent. At the back is a garden of fruit trees, where the luxuriant
milk fruit tree donated to Uncle Ho by his southern compatriots in 1954
stands between two lines of Hai Hung orange trees. Other valuable trees
belonging to more than 30 species supplied by the Ministry of Agriculture,
the Ministry of Forestry, and several provinces represent the wide variety
of trees growing in Vietnam. There are also trees imported from foreign
countries, such as Ngan Hoa trees, miniature rose bushes, areca trees from
the Caribbean, Buddhist bamboo trees, etc. Dozens of varieties of orchid
beautifully hang from the trees which blossom all year round.
Many people know the story of how Uncle Ho came to live in a small
stilt-house rather than a grand palace. But it is worth retelling. Ho Chi
Minh was never one for large houses and comfortable living. He was just 21
when, in 1911, he set out to travel "the five continents and the four
oceans" to seek ways of saving his country. For 30 years he lived a
nomadic life, changing addresses constantly. When he came back to Viet Nam
in 1941, he led the revolution against colonial rule and read the
country’s historic Declaration of Independence at Ba Dinh Square in Ha Noi
on September 2, 1945. Not long afterwards, the French attempted to
reassert control of their former dominion, and Ho Chi Minh and his
generals were forced into the north-western mountains. During the
resistance war of 1946-54, Uncle Ho reverted to his nomadic ways, for the
only means of avoiding detection and capture was to live life constantly
on the run. He moved from one hide-out to another several times a month,
and only lived in stilt-houses. When the war was won in 1954, the Party,
Government and Ho Chi Minh came back to Ha Noi. But Uncle Ho eschewed the
trappings of authority. A true egalitarian, he chose to live a simple
life: he wore brown cotton garments and rubber sandals made from car tyres,
and lived in a worker’s cottage out the back of the Presidential Palace.
In 1958, Uncle Ho revisited the former resistance base in the north-west
and saw some of the stilt-houses where he had spent the war years. When he
got back to Ha Noi, he said h e
wanted a similar stilt-house built on the grounds of the Presidential
Palace itself. The Party commissioned an architect from the Department for
Army Barracks to design the house, but told him to submit his plans to
Uncle Ho for comment before work began. The initial design had three
rooms, including a toilet. But Uncle Ho wanted the house to remain
faithful to the real thing. "The stilt-house must have only one or two
rooms, small rooms at that, and definitely no toilet," he said. The
architect amended the designs, and the stilt-house that Ho Chi Minh moved
into on May 17, 1958, had two rooms of just 10sq.m each. He lived and
worked there for the remaining 11 years of his life.
Today, the stilt-house and its furnishings have been preserved must as
they were in the 1960s. In the area under the house, Ho Chi Minh would
receive visitors and meet members of the Political Bureau. In the centre
of the floor is a long table, with wooden and bamboo chairs around it.
Uncle Ho used a rattan armchair in the left-hand corner to sit and read,
or rest. In another corner are three telephones that he used to talk to
the Political Bureau, the Operations Department and others, and a steel
helmet that he wore during the years of the American War.
In the right-hand corner, he kept an aquarium with goldfish to amuse
visiting children. The two rooms of the stilt-house are sparsely
furnished. One, the bedroom, contains only a bed and wardrobe. The other,
the study, houses a table, chair and bookshelf. His appliances were just
the bare necessities: a palm-leaf fan, a brown paper fan, a bamboo
mosquito catcher, a little thermos-flask, a bottle of water, a radio-set
given by Vietnamese nationals in Thailand, and a small electric fan – a
gift from the Communist Party of Japan. A little brass bell used to hang
on the door. In the stilt-house, Uncle Ho received top cadres, children
and his close friends. He spent most of his time writing letters,
revolutionary articles encouraging "good people, good deeds," and
documents of great historical value on important political tasks such as
his 1966 Call against US Imperialism, for National Salvation. Plants and
trees were gro wn
in the area around the stilt-house, as Uncle Ho was a poet with a great
love for nature and pet animals. The garden is bordered with hibiscus, and
the gate of climbing plants is typical of rural Viet Nam. The front garden
is decorated with little bushes of fragrant jasmines and eglantines, while
at the rear is a stand of star-fruit trees from the country’s south.
Spring sends the garden into a colourful riot of mangoes, white blossoms,
and orchids. Uncle Ho regularly practised martial arts and taichi with the
guards in the garden, also the place where he once conducted people
singing the famous song Unity, like a real orchestra conductor. In front
of the stilt-house is his fish-pond, teeming with fish that he fed with
great care. He only had to clap his hands and they came in shoals for
food. The house clearly reveals his humility, his erudition and his love
of simplicity and nature.
As late Prime Minister Pham Van Dong once wrote: "It is not merely a
landscape, but a way of life; it speaks of a priceless joy that the
current civilisation seems deprived of, with its polluted mega-cities and
cluttered high-rise apartments."
Today, visitors flock to the stilt-house to remember what kind of a man
Uncle Ho was, and to celebrate his memory – a man of sophisticated
intellect yet simple pleasures, of revolutionary ideas yet of peaceful
disposition.
Quan Thanh Temple :
The three ancient Chinese which are still
seen today on the top of the entrance to the temple means Tran Vu Quan.
That is literally the temple which is dedicated to Saint Tran Vu. A temple
is a place for worshipping saints while a pagoda is dedicated to Buddha
and faithful disciplines.
Saint Tran Vu
was a legendary figure which was a combination between a legendary
character in Vietnam's legend and a mystic character derived from China's
legend. The legendary character in Vietnam's legend was a saint who had
earned the merits of assisting King An Duong Vuong in getting rid of ghost
spirit during the King's construction of his citadel at Co Loa.
The
Chinese legendary figure was a saint who made great contributions in
safeguarding the northern border. Quan Thanh Temple was built during the
reign of King Ly Thai To (1010-1028). In 1893 the temple was given a grand
facelift to have the shape as we can see it today. Special attention
should be paid to a black bronze statute of Saint Tran Vu. The giant
statute, formally placed in the main hall, was cast in 1677. Another
special object is an ancient bronze bell, 1.5 meters high, which is hanged
at the top of the three-gate entrance.
Another
object of no less significant is a smaller black bronze statute of Old
Trong, a chief artisan of the bronze casting team who had made the giant
statute of Saint Tran Vu and the great bell on top of the tree-gate
entrance. To commemorate the great contributions of the teacher Old Trong,
his students of bronze casting cast his statute and placed in the temple
for their for their younger generations to remember Old
 Trong
for ever.
Hanoi Cathedral :
Hanoi Cathedral was built on the site
of the former Bao Thien Tower, which was famous in the ancient capital of
Thang Long under the Ly dynasty (11th and 12th centuries). Hanoi
Cathedral, also known as Saint Joseph's Cathedral, was inaugurated on
Christmas Day 1886, two years after its construction. Its design is
similar to the architecture of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Many catholic rituals have been held there. A ritual
ceremony dedicated to Jesus Christ is held in this cathedral every
year on March 19.
Ly Quoc Su Temple :
Situated at No. 50, Ly Quoc Su Street in down town Hanoi, Ly Quoc Su
temple worships a Buddhist Monk of the Ly Dynasty (10th -12th centuries).
This Monk, whose full name was Nguyen Chi Thanh, was born on lunar August,
14, 1066 in Dien Xa Village, Gia Vien District in Ninh Binh Province in
the reign of King Ly Thanh Tong. In 1077, at the age of 11, Nguyen Chi
Thanh began practicing for the Buddhist monkhood and was taught by Tu Dao
Hanh, a well-known monk. As the legend says, Monk Tu Dao Hanh was erudite
in Buddhism and excellent in healing. He admired and respected Nguyen Chi
Thanh's talent and virtue. In 1138, in his seventies, Monk Nguyen Chi
Thanh cured King Ly Than Tong of a disease that many famous doctors had
failed to do. For his respectful virtue and talent, he was given the title
Ly Quoc Su by the King, which meant Great Monk and Merit Teacher of the
nation.
The King provided Ly Quoc Su with a serene residential quarter, which was
situated next to Bao Thien Pagoda in the centre of Thang Long Capital, on
a side of Luc Thuy Lake (Hoan Kiem Lake of today). This pagoda had a
12-storey tower. Apart from preaching Buddhist sutra for the monks and
nuns, Ly Quoc Su taught medicine, prescription of medicines and demotic
scripts to many people in the temple and surrounding areas. Skilled in
bronze casting, Ly Quoc Su also trained many bronze casting craftsmen.
That's why when he died at the age of 75 at Giao Thuy Pagoda in Nam Dinh
in 1141, King Ly Anh Tong (holding power from 1138 to 1175) had a temple
erected right on the ground of the residential quarter where Ly Quoc Su
had lived. Throughout the country there are many pagodas worshipping both
Buddhists and Ly Quoc Su, who is considered the Saint of the bronze
casting craft, such as Giao Thuy Pagoda in Nam Dinh and Keo Pagoda in Thai
Binh.
Ly Quoc Su Temple was rehabilitated and re-decorated many times, with the
biggest restoration being made in 1954. The cultural and historical
treasure of this temple still remains Ly Quoc Su's statue, Buddhist
statues and statues of Monk Tu Dao Hanh and his mother and Monk Giac Hai.
There is also the precious bell of Tu Chung, cast in the 19th century and
a stone stele with inscriptions made in 1855 by Le Dinh Duyen, a famous
man. The name of Ly Quoc Su was given to a 244 metre-long street running
from Hang Bong to Nha Tho Streets.
Hai Ba Trung Temple:
The temple is also called Dong Nhan Temple
because it is located in the area of Dong Nhan village in Hai Ba Trung
precinct. The temple was built in 1142 inder the reign of King Ly Anh
Tong. It is dedicated to the two Vietnamse heroines Trung Trac and Trung
Nhi. At the inner sanctum of the temple there are two statutes made of
fine clay dedicating the two ladies Trung. Flanking on either side of the
two statutes of Ladies Trung are statutes of 12 women generals who
followed the two Ladies leading their army to defeat the foreign
aggressors. In the 5th and 6th day of the second lunar month there is a
grand festival organized at the site of the temple to commemorate the two
national heroines.
Sword Restored
Lake:
The lake which is not as large as Ho Tay to
the northwest is situated in the center of the city. Because of its unique
location Sword Restored Lake is billed as a basket of lower placed in the
middle of Hanoi. The name of Sword Restored Lake is derived from a legend
which has it that King Le Thai To had a precious sword. The sword. The
sword had always been on his side during the 10-year resistance against
the Ming aggressors. After he won over the foreign aggression and returned
to Thang Long Citadel. One day he went out and boarded a royal boat to
cruise in the lake. Suddenly he saw a giant turtle emerging and coming
towards him. The king withdrew his sword and pinpointed with the sword the
direction of the coming turtle for his soldiers' attention. All of a
sudden, the turtle caught the sword between its teeth from the king's hand
and submerged. The king thought that it might have been that during the
resistance war against the Ming aggreession, the king was offereda sword
by genie to help him defeat the enemy. Now when peace has returned the
genie appeared and took back the sword. With that thought in mind, King Le
Thai To named the lake after episode as Ho Hoan Kiem (Lake of Restored
Sword).
< Back
Next > |
