Huong Pagoda Festival, lost in a world of fairies

“This immense area with wonderful features 
  Makes one wonder whether it is fairyland 
  Huong Son itself is fairyland 
  Which is seen in this earthly world"

The beautiful verse describes scenic spot of Huong Pagoda, designated by UNESCO as a world cultural heritage site, which makes one can’t help having the feeling that is one were lost in a world of fairies. Huong Son attracts visitors not only with its wonderful landscape, but also with its sense of philosophy embodied inside its splendid caves, of which  Huong Tich and Tuyet Son are the most impressive. Visitors are bewitched by the beauty of these cases which look half real and half unreal. That explains the reason why the cold weather cannot keep thousands of pilgrims and tourists away from the Huong Pagoda Festival, the nation’s longest and most elaborate annual festival.

Oficially occuring from the 15th day to the 20th day of the second lunar month, Huong Pagoda Festival mainly consists of sightseeing trips to pagodas, temples and caves as well as visiting ceremonies to ask favours from Lord Buddha. Situated approximately 60 kilometers southwest from Ha Noi, Huong Son boasts quite a few pagodas built in the Posterior Le Dynasty. Annually, a vast number of pilgrims have been flocking to the northern province of Ha Noi’s My Duc District for the three-month Huong Pagoda Festival, enjoying the beauty of the Huong Son limestone mountains at a time when apricot trees are in bloom and pay tribute to Buddha, specifically to Avalokitasvara, one of Buddha's disciples.
Legend has it that the festival is held to worship a princess named Dieu Thien who incarnated Avalokitasvara and attained enlightenment there. As the princess was born on the 19th day of the second lunar month, that date is now observed by all Vietnamese Buddhists as a saint day. The shrine in which she practised her religion was discovered in the 15th century by three monks. The pilgrimage to Huong Son dwindled to a trickle during the war years and the temples and shrines were left vacant.. In 1770, Lord Trinh Sam wrote five Chinese characters to describe Huong Tich Cavern: Nam Thien De Nhat Dong (the most beautiful cave in Vietnam). The Huong Pagoda Festival started during the Le-Trinh Dynasty. In 1958, after the restoration of peace in North Vietnam, the Government and President Ho Chi Minh personally gave instructions for the repair of the pagodas and temples and the restoration of the festival. Annually, visitors to the festival to enjoy the beauty of the Huong Son limestone mountains at a time when apricot trees are in bloom and pay tribute to Buddha, specifically to Avalokitasvara, one of Buddha's disciples.

According to the legend, a pilgrimage to Huong Pagoda in the spring will bring health, prosperity, good luck and happiness. And whether you believe in the story or not, there's no disputing that a trip like this offers a perfect chance to get closer to both nature and Vietnamese tradition.
A meaningful pilgrimage

The festival is a traditional Vietnamese Buddhist celebration, held simultaneously in three locations: Huong Tich, Tuyet Son, and Long Van. The festival is most crowded from the 15th - 20th day of the 2nd month of the lunar calendar as this period marks the the main festival. However, since the first day of the lunar New Year, thousands of tourists and pilgrims have flocked to the sacred land to tour and pray for a prosperous and happy year. Spring is the idea time for bothVietnamese and foreigners come to Huong Son. Heading there, you have chances to live in a boisterous atmosphere of a spring festival amidst beautiful landscape. They seem to be free from all tiredness and sorrow and come to pay respect to the compassionate Buddha.

Unlike many other festivals, the Huong Pagoda Festival does not centre around traditional games, but rather romantic trips to caves, pagodas and temples and participation in ceremonies to beseech favours from Lord Buddha. The Venerable Thich Minh Hien rang the bell to officially open the festival at the Huong Pagoda, on the sixth day of the first lunar month. The opening ceremony began at the Thien Tru Pagoda with pilgrims and tourists invited to take part in the incense offering ceremony. In order to warning up the festival’s lively ambience in the chilly weather, the traditional raditional songs and dances took place before and after the ceremony. Visitors attending Huong pagoda festival usually make some wishes and when they are worshipping Buddha’s in the pagoda, they pray for their wishes to come true. The visitors bring offerings with them from home, including boiled chickens, boiled pigs' heads and steamed sticky rice. After prayers, each person will take a small portion of the offering (called loc) which is then carried home for their family. Loc is a sacred and precious thing as it is believed to bring good luck to those who eat it. In addition, cultural activities and sporting contests are also held on the occasion of Huong Pagoda Festival: boat racing, climbing, folk song singing, etc. These festive activities take place throughout the festival.

A pilgrimage to the Huong Pagoda Festival cannot only be for religious reasons, but to see the numerous natural shapes that are typical of the landscape and the buildings that are valuable artifacts of the nation. When you make a pilgrimage to Huong Pagoda you are in the middle of nature at its best, with a gorgeous river, caves, and mountains.Therefore, people of different ages all so interested in the Huong Pagoda Festival...

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Street Food Moves From Sidewalk to Storefront in VietNam

On my first trip to Southeast Asia almost 30 years ago, I fell in love with street food. I was a student on a budget, staying in an area in Bangkok still famous for backpacker hotels.

Along the streets and alleyways, stalls were mixing up complicated soups, grilling skewers, wrapping pancakes and selling the best noodles I had ever eaten.

The only thing to do was count out the equivalent of 50 cents or a dollar, sit down on a plastic stool at a table covered with oilcloth and start eating.

Back in those pre-Internet days, street food was something you explored for yourself. The intrepid foodie was rewarded with unexpected treats that were cheaper, more authentic and tastier than anything that might be served in a grown-up restaurant.

Bangkok is not the only Southeast Asian city renowned for street cuisine. These days, you can find Top 10 lists and apps directing you to stalls and markets from Singapore and Taipei to Penang and Manila.

Nor are frugal travelers the only visitors drawn to street food. When I checked into the Essence Hotel in Hanoi with my husband last summer (“an unrivaled luxury boutique hotel chain experience in the heart of Hanoi”), a sign at the desk advertised street food tours.

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And indeed, delicious packets of sticky rice, fried spring rolls and skewers of grilled chicken are prepared by vendors on crowded streets in the Old Quarter and in farther-flung neighborhoods.

I found myself buying sidewalk banh mi — Vietnamese sandwiches of grilled meat or cold cuts, herbs and vegetables stuffed into small, perfectly crusty baguettes, inevitably produced from a large straw basket by a vendor on a busy corner.

The dishes are so delicious, and so clearly carry local flavors, that the culinary genre has made a leap into upscale restaurants where menus feature “street food snacks” or “famous street noodles.”

It seems that lowly street food is now, paradoxically, a higher-end tourist business. I decided to check out a few restaurants, both expensive and humble, in Hanoi and around the historic town of Hoi An.

But before I get started on what I found, it is helpful to note that restaurants and street stalls in Vietnam reflect more than culinary traditions.

In “Shadows and Wind: A View of Modern Vietnam,” Robert Templer talks about how pho stalls in Hanoi were shut down in the ’50s, under Communism, generating a culture of “speakeasy soup joints.” When the economy was liberalized in the late 1980s, street stalls were among the first small businesses to return.

In 1990, when a law was passed encouraging private enterprise, restaurants and even restaurant empires began to grow out of some of the most successful streetside soup pots and other cherished recipes.

One of the first meals we had was lunch at Quan An Ngon, a restaurant that is celebrated for serving street food from all over Vietnam. The huge courtyard was lined with stalls, each contributing to an encyclopedic menu that included noodle soups, spring and summer rolls, grilled fishballs, salads and more.

We tried banh cuon, rice flour pancakes stuffed with pork and mushrooms; the grilled pork dish bun cha; and banh xeo, a crepe with a distinctive rice flour texture.

It was a pleasant meal, but this upscale emporium couldn’t touch what was delivered at far less expensive joints, many of them transitional spots that are essentially overgrown street stalls. While taking over slightly more permanent real estate, moving from sidewalk to storefront, the informality and limited menu of the street vendor are preserved. The more we sought out these specialized places, the better we ate.

Take bun cha, a classic Hanoi meal of charcoal-grilled pork slices and pork patties, served over thin noodles. We had pleasant restaurant versions, but they paled next to the bun cha served at Bun Cha Nem Cua Be Dac Kim, a one-dish joint in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, where phenomenally flavorful grilled meat arrived hot and juicy, and the dipping options included a mountain of pepper-spiked garlic, along with fish-sauce-based condiments.

The little two-story storefront, which opens onto the street where some of the grilling takes place, is furnished with those same oilcloth-covered tables and plastic stools that seem to define street food everywhere. A dedicated staff produces that one spectacular recipe (well, actually two recipes, since the bun cha comes with excellent crab spring rolls).

A similar setup exists at Bun Thang Ba Duc on Cau Go Street, also in the Old Quarter. Bun thang is one of the great noodle soups of Vietnam, but less well known than pho — the anise-scented beef noodle soup that has been franchised all over the world.

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This is another one-dish place, and once again, much of the cooking (and eating) is on the sidewalk, although there has been expansion into a modest two-story restaurant. When we were there, the spaghetti-like noodles, bathed in a rich chicken broth, came with an array of toppings — egg, chicken, onions, herbs, dried shrimps, fried shallots, pickled vegetables — arranged in a gorgeous mosaic atop the white noodles.

And then there are the essential flavorings: shrimp paste, and what Mr. Templer describes as “the tiniest drop of musk produced by a male belostomatid insect, a large and rather fearsome beetle.”

Our plan was to complement our culinary itinerary with visits to cultural sites. And so, our stomachs full from our Bun Thang Ba Duc meal, we headed for the magnificent Hanoi Museum of Vietnamese History, which houses Hindu, Buddhist and Confucian art and artifacts. It is the perfect place to learn about the complexity of the cultural influences that shaped the country.

Among those influences was the ancient Hindu Cham kingdom, which dominated central Vietnam from the seventh century, and was powerful enough to rival and assault the Khmer kingdom of Angkor in the 12th century. The Cham still constitute a linguistic minority group in Vietnam. Cham Hindu sculptures — beautifully carved images of Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma — are showcased in the Hanoi exhibits.

The museum building itself — the former French École Française d’Extreme Orient, built by the French colonial architect Ernest Hebrard in the 1930s in the “pagoda” style — reflects the complexity of cultural influences in Vietnam.

It is only one example of French colonial architecture in Hanoi; others include the cathedral and the opera house. And the colonial Hotel Metropole is now fully restored in all its luxury — complete with an exhibit on the celebrities who stayed there before, during and after the war years (including Charlie Chaplin, Catherine Deneuve, Jane Fonda, Joan Baez and John McCain). At the Metropole, lobster thermidor is on the menu, and guests are advised to dress appropriately for dinner. But we had other meals to pursue.

One of those meals was xoi, made with sticky rice with mung beans and onions, among other toppings. We found the dish at Xoi Yen, another couple of steps up the ladder from street stall to restaurant. We ordered xoi with chicken, which was delicious, but also saw bowls going by topped with fried eggs, pork, vegetables and other combinations.

Xoi Yen feels more like a real restaurant, with a corps of busy waiters, and a balcony crowded with families and sociable groups, all eating xoi. Again, much of the cooking is at a counter right out on the street.

Near the end of our stay in Hanoi, we sought out Cha Ca La Vong, a restaurant that, like the Metropole, has hosted celebrities and inspired famous chefs around the world.

Unlike the Metropole, it is a one-dish place with food that you might easily find on the street; a single preparation of freshwater fish prepared in a pan. At the restaurant, the fish is grilled on an electric skillet at your table, flavored with turmeric, herbs, green onions and shrimp paste. Once again, the dish was better than any version we ate at restaurants with tablecloths and more extensive menus.

After Hanoi, we moved south to Da Nang, the booming city that is the economic heart of central Vietnam, but actually dates from the Cham empire. The Da Nang Museum of Cham Sculpture, established by French archaeologists in 1919, has spectacular works: dancing apsara ladies, playful elephants, a galaxy of monsters and divinities.

In My Son, we saw the Shiva temples, the most important Cham archaeological sites in Vietnam, even after the American bombing during the war.

Most of the surviving temples date from the 10th century, and are built of red brick and covered with graceful carvings. The towering temples and the lush plants that grow around and over them evoke a sense of a giant kingdom lost and found.

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You visit My Son from the touristy historic town of Hoi An, about one hour away. The big enterprise here is tailoring; you can get clothing made or copied in a day or less at numerous tailor shops.

After walking around the old town, we took a cab to the beach at Cua Dai, three miles away, where we found the Man Restaurant, one of several beachside seafood joints, where our driver clearly had a connection. The beach was spectacular, with views of mountains and islands and a pink tropical sunset. We were invited to find a spot in a row of chairs and umbrellas on condition that we ordered food.

And did I mention that it happened to be one of the best restaurants in the world? The waiter assured us that his father had caught the fish that was being grilled by his brother on the patio.

We went back the next day (and the next) to hang out on the beach, and then earn our right to the beach chairs by eating dinners of barbecued clams, perfumed with a shallot-scented oil that the waiter said was one of his mother’s special recipes, and grilled fish wrapped in charred banana leaves.

Shallot oil, fermented fish sauce, the essential drop of musk from a belostomatid beetle: I’d like to think these flavors may go back to the ancient kingdoms that carved the sculptures I admired on our journey.

What we were served on the beach wasn’t street food, exactly, because there wasn’t any street. But it was a restaurant where there was nothing hidden: The cooking was happening out where we could see it, on grills and open flames.

As with the other great street-inspired food we found in Vietnam, the secret was in the narrowly focused menus, a devotion to the subtle and complicated combinations of ingredients, and a commitment to the culinary traditions of the street.

If You Go

Quan An Ngon, 18 Phan Boi Chau Street, Hanoingonhanoi.com.vn/index.php/en/about-us. Average cost of a meal: About 150,000 to 200,000 Vietnamese dong, or $7.10 to $9.50 at 21,000 dong to the dollar.

Bun Cha Nem Cua Be Dac Kim, 67 Duong Thanh Street, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi. About 100,000 Vietnamese dong.

Bun Thang Ba Duc, 48 Cau Go, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi. About 50,000 Vietnamese dong.

Xoi Yen, 35B Nguyen Huu Huan, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi. About 50,000 Vietnamese dong.

Cha Ca La Vong, 14 Cha Ca, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi. About 170,000 Vietnamese dong.

Man Restaurant, Cua Dai, Plot No. 05, Cua Dai Beach, Hoi An. About 100,000 to 200,000 Vietnamese dong for a meal, but varies by type of seafood.

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Combined Mekong Delta and Phu Quoc Island Tour

Hochiminh Muslim Tour Malaysia sincerely introduce the Combined Mekong Delta and Phu Quoc Island Tour as follows:

Get on a boat ride under the shadow of the water coconut palm trees, Taste seasonal fresh fruit in the orchards, Visit the Sam Mountain and the caved pagoda, Contemplate the sunset over the Vietnamese-Cambodian Frontier. Enjoy the natural things at Tra Su Sanctuary. See the lively floating markets in Cantho, Experience the "Monkey Bridge" in the Delta, Enjoy relaxing days on the paradise beach of Phu Quoc island.

Day 1: Ho Chi Minh city – My Tho – Ben Tre – Chau Doc (L / _ )

• At 8.00am, pick up at your hotel in Ho Chi Minh and depart for My Tho. Take a boat ride along the river, view the stilt houses and the fruit plantation along the river bank. Proceed to Tortoise island and have lunch in the orchard. Enjoy a boat ride through Tan Thach natural canal in Ben Tre, cruising under the shadow of the water coconut trees.


• Visit a family business which epitomizes the idyllic rural lifestyle. Enjoy a rowing boat ride along the creeks. After trekking through the fruit plantation, village. Proceed to Chau Doc. Check in on arrival. Visit the Sam Mountain and the cave pagoda, Admire the sunset over the Vietnamese-Cambodian Frontier.


• Dinner on guest's account.


• Overnight in Chau Doc.


• Three stars hotel standard:  Chau Pho hotel


• Address: 88, Trung Nu Vuong street, Chau Doc town

Day 2 : Chau Doc – Tra Su Sanctuary – Can Tho ( B/L)

• Breakfast at your hotel. Take a motor boat trip to see the floating fish farm and the floating village. Visit the local Cham minority village in their traditional weaving village. Continue the tour to visit Tra Su, getting to the wild birds Sanctuary, cruising smoothly with small boats to discover the arrays of splendid canals deep into the forest, watching storks, cranes and other tropical birds.


• Back to Chau Doc for Lunch.


• Depart for Can Tho.


• Dinner on guest's account.


• Overnight in Can Tho


• Three stars hotel standard:  Kim Tho hotel


• Address: 1A Ngo Gia Tu Street -Tan An Ward - Ninh Kieu District - Can Tho city

Day 3: Can Tho - Cai Rang – Phong Dien - Phu Quoc ( B / L/_ )

• Breakfast at the hotel. Take a three-hour boat trip to visit the Cai Rang and Phong Dien floating markets. Wander through the villages, visit the rice paper mill and discover how rice noodles are made.


• Return to Can Tho for lunch.


• Transfer to the airport for boarding the flight VN1014 to Phu Quoc (13.00 – 13.45). Pick up and transfer to your hotel.


• Dinner on guest's account.


• Overnight in Phu Quoc.


• Three stars hotel standard:  Thien Hai Son Resort


• Address: 68 Tran Hung Dao Street, Duong Dong, Phu Quoc

Day 4: Phu Quoc (B)

• Breakfast at the resort. Full day at leisure for beach activities.


• Lunch & dinner on guest's account.


• Overnight in Phu Quoc.


• Three stars hotel standard: Thien Hai Son Resort


• Address: 68 Tran Hung Dao Street, Duong Dong, Phu Quoc

Day 5: Phu Quoc (B)

• Breakfast at the resort. Full day at leisure for beach activities.


• Lunch & dinner on guest's account.


• Overnight in Phu Quoc.


• Three stars hotel standard: Thien Hai Son Resort


• Address: 68 Tran Hung Dao Street, Duong Dong, Phu Quoc

Day 6: Phu Quoc (B)

• Breakfast at the resort. Full day at leisure for beach activities.


• Lunch & dinner on guest's account.


• Overnight in Phu Quoc.


• Three stars hotel standard: Thien Hai Son Resort


• Address: 68 Tran Hung Dao Street, Duong Dong, Phu Quoc

Day 7: Phu Quoc – Ho Chi Minh (B/_/_)                                

• Breakfast at your hotel.


• Transfer to the airport for boarding the flight VN1822 to Ho Chi Minh (12.55 – 13.50).


• End of Combined Mekong Delta and Phu Quoc Island Tour

Include:

• A/c private car/van for pick up, transfer & sightseeing as per program


• Domestic flights: Can Tho – Phu Quoc – Ho Chi Minh (Economy class)


• Cold mineral water and cool tissue on car


• English speaking tour guide


• Private boat trips in the Mekong Delta


• Hotel accommodation based on two persons share a double/ twin room


• All entrance fees


• Meals as indicated in the tour program (B = Breakfast; L = Lunch; D = Dinner)


• Approved invitation letter for Vietnamese visa

Exclude:

• International flight to/from Vietnam


• International airport tax


• Vietnamese entry visa (US$45/person)


• Travel insurance


• Drinks & other meals not mentioned in the program


• Personal expenses.

Thank you for visiting our Combined Mekong Delta and Phu Quoc Island Tour. We are looking forward to serving you.

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