Hanoi III – Duong Lam Village

We arrived at the Duong Lam village at about 10:17 in the morning. Some of the houses here are 100s of years old which makes the village a hot spot for tourists.

At the main gates of all old villages here in Vietnam there are ponds.

A water buffalo takin' a bath.

The small village alleys became long winding streets in my mind.

This is the town square of the village.

In the town square there is a uber huge praying temple for the village god.   

Dragon roof. (You see 'em everywhere in Asia). 

The wooden pillars they use are huge.

As we came to one of the old homes we found a sort of vine that hung down over the entrance. It was shady, soft and very beautiful. 

After the vine path we came to the courtyard of the house.

As you can see people here spend a lot of time praying. The altar is for the family’s ancestors who seem to be a big deal here in Vietnam.

But not all Asians are Buddhist. As you can see by this altar a bunch of them are Catholic. 

After taking a peek at the altars we sat down for some ginger candies and tea even though it was 180 degrees outside. (Vietnam is tropical, so it's hot all year round.)

After the tea we went for a short bike around the area and looked at temples.

That guy is walking his buffalo with his motorbike.

As you can see those graves mean that usually the farmers just drop dead in the heat and are buried on the spot. 

The people here like to chop the roots of these into slices, dry them and feed them to their cows.

 

The locals dry these in every place imaginable. 

Taters, taters, every where. Up and down and in my hair.

"I know how to use a lighter too you know."

Viewing one of the temples I lost my tooth.

This is a memorial to General NGO Quyen (Kaylyn?). He figured out how to beat the Chinese in 939!!! Over 1072 years ago!!!! Any way his plan was to lure Chinese forces down the river at high tide. Before he had  lured the Chinese down the river he had placed logs across the bank so that when the Chinese came down the river and tried to retreat at low tide they would be blocked by the logs.  He ended 1,000 years of Chinese domination and became king. 

The temple is at a spot where General Ngo used to keep his navy.

  

The locals said that these were some of the logs that were in the river at the time.

Random cow.

Dad drew the cow.

Dad's bike was terrible so we had to wait for him a lot.

Corn drying.

The school kids here come home for lunch.

We had chicken for lunch with a large side of M.S.G.

Somehow in Asia there is a cat everywhere.

Well I hope that you don't get this too late so you had better hurry up with that letter.

Parker 

P.S. (Pam) I liked seeing all the temples and altars in Vietnam. There are so many different ones, set up to honor ancestors, local and national heroes, Buddha, Confucius, Christian saints, local gods and other spirits. Here in the village, I thought it was interesting that the Catholic altar we saw looked just like the ancestor altars, except that it had pictures of Catholic saints instead of ancestors. 

Here and in China you see small altars everywhere ­– along the roadsides, in sacred banyan trees, in businesses and in homes as well as in temples. People don't have to pick out only one spirit to honor; they often pay respects to several different ones.