Temples of Vietnam
The Buddhist Pagodas of Ho Chi Minh City were focal points for me. I hoped to learn more about the spiritual background of the Vietnamese, these kind, patient, earthy people to whom smiles were so significant. I had read that it was important to smile at people here. It was an agreeable task and I did my best. I smiled generously at everyone, dressed well and was humble and polite. In turn they looked after me and made my stay a pleasure.
Xá Lợi Pagoda is located near the city centre in Quan Three with a large statue of Kuan Yin dominating the entrance. This pagoda was famous as a centre of the Buddhist resistance to the South’s military juntas and their escalation of the war. It was temporarily occupied by troops and atrocities were committed against the monks, but their steadfastness was legendary.
It was on a small block of land which was packed with sculptures, carefully propagated plants and many Buddhas, including the large one inside the innermost shrine. I admired the stylish Chinese-style architecture and the work of the artisans that went into creating and maintaining the elaborate ornamentation of such a fiercely holy place. Here I first noticed the strangely arrogant attitude of the monks who merely looked severely at anyone who paid respect to them. They were certainly not available to answer questions from the hoi polloi.
There were many vantage points to get nice photos, with two rooms containing large sculpted Buddhas, one upstairs, with a large balcony overlooking the grounds. There was a building to one side to house the monks and a tiny shop around the back which sold icons, books and jewellery, staffed by a couple of unhurried older ladies. I smiled at the Osho books on the shelf and bought a small silver Buddha for my sister. There were many desirable objects there but I had no capacity to collect new possessions. A tiny memento would have to do.
In front of Xá Lợi some women sat selling trinkets, snacks and, curiously, small birds crammed noisily in a wire cage. Presumably people buy them to release in the temple grounds. The language barrier prevented me from finding out more but I had a sugar-cane juice which was squeezed out slowly on an old machine before I left to walk around the nearby streets in search of a taxi to take me home.
Bat Buu Phat Dai – the Temple of the Lonely Buddha, was a long drive from Quan 7 and the taxi driver was unfamiliar with the district, but he was eager to go. It would be a good earner in the stifling heat. The trip took so long I began to wonder where he was taking me. We passed farms, canals and small villages before finding the huge, touristy temple with large car parks and luxury coaches coming and going. The temple was impressive but lacked the fine touches and details I had admired in the smaller temples. It did have large grounds, forest views and spaciousness and the monk’s quarters were far bigger than those at Xá Lợi.
I struggled around in the heat taking as many shots as I could before I had to return to the car. When I did my driver had bought a couple of sugar-cane juices and we drank thirstily before departing for the tedious journey home.
There was a much smaller temple nearby which we also visited briefly. The occupants there were bemused to see a tourist but they didn’t mind me taking photos and exploring their garden.
By the time the driver delivered me back to Quan Seven he was exhausted and grabbed a million Vietnamese Dong from my out-stretched hand and fled before I could ask him to do anything else. He had had enough. It had been a big day for both of us.
On another day I visited Giac Lam Pagoda in the suburbs. Extensive grounds made room for larger stupa, buildings and statues. Kuan Yin was there in front of the main hall and there were nice gardens to wander around with interesting nooks to explore. There were folkloric and Taoist influences and it was, at nearly three hundred years old, one of the oldest Buddhist temples in the city. Less than three hundred years didn’t seem very old, but I was unable to find out why there were no older Pagodas in the city. It remains a mystery to me. The oldest Buddhist pagoda in Hanoi was about fifteen hundred years old. That’s a big difference but I can only speculate that Buddhism came later to the south.
The driver waited while I snapped as many photos as I could before succumbing to the heat, then drove me back to the apartment in time for some Indian food and a quiet coffee in the cooler evening.
Although I had a genuine spiritual interest in the pagodas, which were lively cultural museums, it was their visual appeal that drew me to them this time around. I was determined to capture as much of the visual brilliance of the East as I could on my digital cameras. They were not expensive machines but they took good pictures and videos and I would take a few hundred on a good day and I had a reliable, relatively new laptop on which to store them. My personal photo collection numbered in the thirty thousands so I had vast visual resources for my various projects, including music videos, web sites and this travelogue.
Streetscapes and temples were my favourite subjects. Personal portraits were problematic because of the complications of people’s privacy and permissions. I would have to largely do without them though it meant missing out on a wealth of opportunities.
Back in my apartment I was preparing for the next milestone of my journey, the flight to Mumbai. My visas had come through, everything seemed to be in order, as far as that was possible, and another trip, my fourth one to India was approaching. I was enervated by the prospect of successfully traversing the oceans and continents which would lead me to Nepal, the mystical kingdom of the Himalayas. I had heard tales of Nepal on previous visits to India. Seasoned travellers spoke of the wild experiences to be had there and their preference for Pokhara over Kathmandu. Soon I would see for myself.
Travels to Nepal 