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Vietnam Open Tour News & EventsWEDNESDAY 21 OCTOBER, 2009 |
 Ba The - Land of the Oc Eo culture The culture of Oc Eo is the general name of a civilization attached to the kingdom of legendary Phu Nam. It appeared at the same time as Phu Nam inhabitants of the ancient land of the South from the 2nd century to the end of the 6th century. Ba The is where Oc Eo culture had the most development with thousands of antiques excavated such as jewelries made from pottery, stone, gold and bronze and many stone statues influenced by Buddhism and Hinduism such as statues of the Buddha, sacred objects of Yoni and Linga and an impressive group of Ganesa statues with an elephant head on a human body.
From Long Xuyen City to Provincial Road 943 and then west about 35 kilometers, tourists will arrive at Ba The Mountain, also known as Vong The. This mountain is located in Oc Eo hamlet in An Giang province’s Thoai Son district. There’s a winding concrete road to the top of the mountain. In 2002, this road was built by the government to serve tourism. At the top of Ba The Mountain is an ancient pagoda named Son Tien Tu which was built in 1933. Standing impressively in front of the pagoda is an 8-meter high statue of Quan The Am Buddha. Here, clouds bring cool dew that flies slowly through the sky. Trees stretch green as far as the eye can see and birds sing everywhere. People are dazed by the pagoda’s bell that periodically rings vibrantly over the forest. Beside Son Tien Tu is a 3-meter high granite stone with a diameter large enough for four or five people to surround. On this huge stone’s surface is a footprint which is bigger than a normal human footprint. People call it a ban chan tien, or a fairy’s foot. This originated from a legend that at the beginning of the mountain, stones were soft like clay and a fairy pressed his foot to make this mark. About ten kilometers from Son Tien Tu is a strange-looking house with a front door facing the direction of the rising sun following the Hindu pattern and containing many antiques related to the history and culture of Ba The-Oc Eo. Architecturally, this house looks like a lot of the temples found in South Asian countries with its dome and its rectangular door. The walls of the house are lined with statues of Ganesa deities with elephant heads on human bodies sitting majestically. The banisters are decorated with many small statues of a kind of Arabian horse. Standing at the top of Ba The Mountain in the evening to look at the kitchen smoke that looms over the plains, tourists find peace in this world of dusk. VietNamNet/SGT
Celebrating the New Year 2010 at the Dalat Flower Festival The 2010 Dalat Flower Festival will be held in Dalat from January 1 to 4. This is one of the biggest festivals to start those celebrating the 1,000th anniversary of Thang Long-Hanoi. With the theme ‘Dalat-the Kingdom of Flowers’, the festival is expected to become an international event, so the organizing committee has invited famous flower-growing countries Japan, the Netherlands, the U.S. and China to be part of the festival. Ben Thanh Tourist is offering four day/three night tours to Dalat to experience Flower Festival 2010 that leave on December 31 and January 1.
On the way to Dalat, the tour stops for sightseeing at Damb’ri Waterfall in Bao Loc. This is one of the most beautiful and impressive waterfalls in Lam Dong province. After Damb’ri, the tour takes in Thien Vuong Co Sat Pagoda with its three Buddha statues made of agarwood. After arriving in Dalat and checking into the hotel, Ben Thanh Tourist will hold an evening party with flowers and red wine to celebrate New Year 2010. On the second day, the tour visits Lat Village at the foot of Langbiang Mountain to conquer the peak and take a panoramic view of Dalat City in the mist. In the afternoon, the tour visits Domain de Marie Church and Hang Nga Villa. Then tourists will share the joy with local people at Flower Festival 2010 at Xuan Huong lake. The following day, the tour moves to Truc Lam Monastery, Robin Hill, Tuyen Lam lake, Phoenix Mountain and the Valley of Love to contemplate the mystery of Da Lat Su Quan. Tourists will love the horse-drawn carriage ride around Xuan Huong lake. The final stop is the Dalat Market to buy specialties for relatives. The 3rd Flower Festival (held every two years since 2005) in the Kingdom of Flowers will be four days instead of five as usual, with the total estimated fund of VND15 billion, of which VND5 billion is financed by the State budget and the rest from other sources and contributions. VietNamNet/SGT
Cham set for year’s biggest festival Travelling by air from place to place can be a convenient way to explore the country on a tight schedule, but it removes travellers away from one of the more interesting parts of the country.
Snapshot: The main tower of Poklong Garai Temple, one of the most beautiful and best preserved Cham temples in the country, and the venue for the Kate festival every year. Travelling on the main road of the country will help guests discover missing links between the destinations and the distance between PhanThiet and Phan Rang, providing a perfect sample of the marvelous road. The towns, which are capitals of Binh Thuan and Ninh Thuan provinces, respectively, are 100km away from each other, or only two hours’ drive from the kingdom of resorts, Phan Thiet’s Mui Ne Beach. Phan Rang is an easy destination within a half-day or full-day outing for any resort residents, or an interesting middle stop between Phan Thiet and the scenic Highlands town of Da Lat. The road linking Phan Thiet and Phan Rang runs along Ninh Chu and Ca Na Beaches, two of the most beautiful beaches of the country blessed with serene azure water and fine white sands. At some points, the road runs next to waves white with foam that come thrashing into the road’s wall. So be sure to look out of the buses’ windows, or you will miss some spectacular sights. Phan Rang is the home of the country’s biggest Cham population, a people that once ruled over the central stretch of Viet Nam between the seventh and 19th centuries and built a great civilisation whose relics still mystify scientists. When the Cham community wraps up preparations for the Kate festival, the most important Cham festival of the year which falls on the weekend, a trip to Phan Rang to witness exotic colours of Cham culture at its fullest explosion can be worthwhile. The three-day folk festival involves every Cham in grandiose religious proceedings in which they pay tribute to genies and great historic figures who have had contributed great merit to the ancient kingdom. The rituals at the temples are followed by festivities at villages and homes to mark the happiest and most joyful occasions of the year when families and relatives get together to enjoy themselves. The festival is a demonstration of Cham cultural values to the outside world, featuring unique costumes, music, instruments, dances, games, food, customs, traditional handicrafts and performing arts, among others. The prime venue for the festival is Poklong Garai Temple. Situated within Phan Rang Town, it is among the most beautiful and best preserved Cham temple complexes in the country. According to historians, the temple was built between the 13th and 14th centuries and dedicated to Poklong Garai, the Cham king that built up a prosperous and powerful kingdom in the second half of the 12th century. In the Cham people’s memory, the story of the Poklong Garai has become a legend,with the king described as a genie born mysteriously into a Cham village with a mission to restore the glory of the Cham people. Like other Cham towers scattered across the central provinces, the complex stands on a small hill overlooking the plain around, blazing with red bricks squarely and tightly placed one on another without any kinds of adhesive. The complex consists of a central tower, a fire tower and a gate tower which are 20, 10 and nine metres tall, respectively, standing splendid and imposing against the blue sky. The central tower looks like a pointed cylinder placed upside down, which is utterly dark inside, with just a long, narrow gate opening to the outside. Sweltering Surprisingly, the sweltering heat outside seems to fail to penetrate the red brick, leaving the inside pleasantly cool. The centerpiece is a gilded bust of the king carved into a cylindrical linga, which in turn stands on a square yoni. Linga and yoni represent male and female genitals, respectively, which are Cham people’s main object of worship and symbols that represent the combination of the universe. Today Cham people are mostly Muslims, but it is Brahmanism that has left its profound imprint on the Cham culture and civilisation for more than a 1,000 years. Linga is said to be a representation of Shiva, the most important Brahmanist genie to the Cham.Just several kilometres from Poklong Garai Temple is a village that has preserved Cham traditional pottery for thousands of years. Bau Truc Village, whose population is purely Cham, is said to be one of the two most ancient craft villages in Southeast Asia. Low houses line criss-crossing lanes where women wearing foot-long skirts and scarves around their heads are sifting rice, and cow-pulled carts are slowly roaming. Life is peacefully rustic here. "The craft has been passed down through many generations, and we just follow our ancestors’ footsteps," said Lu Thi Bung, 48, who was busy modeling stoneware alongside her two sisters at her home. Bung was performing the pottery dance around a tall jar. She was spinning herself clockwise in a full circle to model the circular jar instead of using turning tables, a unique technique that is rarely found in any pottery of the world. "The earth is taken from the Quao River’s paddy fields, which is so elastic they stick to the turning tables," she said, adding that few machines can be used with this kind of stoneware. The products are quite simple without glazes or complex patterns, just as they were thousands of years ago. However, they have been exported to countries like the US, Japan, Germany and Thailand. "So only women who are patient enough can bend their backs and spin around for hours," she said, adding that the craft was handed down from her grandmother. Unlike other stoneware, Bau Truc potteries must be baked outdoors on top of firewood, straw and rice husks as fuels burned into a huge blaze. VietNamNet/Viet Nam News News for Tuesday 20 October, 2009 View all news for Tuesday 20 October, 2009 on one page Recent News
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