Journeys in Memory

Wat Pongsanuk- a small temple in a small province in Thailand, receives UNESCO recognition

travel-slowly — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:55:00 GMT

During Songkran days this year, I had a very good opportunity to visit a temple which has just been awarded by the UNESCO as the Heritage Award Winner 2008- the Award of Merit- Asia Pacific. The temple is named "Wat Pongsanuk Nua". The temple is bestowed for its remarkably beautiful, delicate and unique Viharn (or วิหาร in Thai) or temple hall, where the "Phra Chao Phan Ong" (พระเจ้าพันองค์ in Thai or literarily meant "the thousand Buddha") is housed. You would see how much it is beautiful from the picture with this story. The style could not be seen anywhere else in Thailand, ad of course, in the world. This is why the temple has received the great honor even though it is just a small local temple in a small province at the North of Thailand, Lampang. Another reason why it was awarded for last year- 2008, is that the Viharn building shows that it has been reserved very well by the community, with the kind support of the "Little People" group and the local government sector. This shows the strength of the community in helping protect its heritage, which meets the principal aim of the UNESCO. The reason why this Viharn is called "Viharn Phra Chao Phan Ong- Viharn with the thousand Buddha" is probably from the the fact that the little thousand Buddha images were decorated around the Viharn. I feel that this is great.

Photos: Songkran in local style and UNESCO Award Temple in Lampang, Thailand

travel-slowly — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:31:00 GMT

Songkran in local style and UNESCO Award Temple in Lampang, Thailand

The Peaceful Songkran 2010- the "sand" seems not to exist..

travel-slowly — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:24:00 GMT

Back to Bangkok with a nostalgic feeling sinking in the bottom of my mind. But yes, I am re-charged. And my life is back to normal in Bangkok. Songkran brought me to be close to village life and peaceful temples- close to northern Thai way of living, yet something has been missing from the way- many new things replace traditions- such as the pile of sand at the temples was not by the practice from folkway custom, where people would go to the river to get the sand in the bucket and bring it to the temples for building chedi. It was the belief that every time people went to the temple and when they walked out, they took the sand out with them. So every Songkran which is te Thai New Year, it was the tradition that people would bring the sand back to the temples, and so the temples could use that sand for any construction within the compound.

Nowadays, most temples just buy the sand for building their pagodas. Villagers' support is not neccessary anymore. Piling the sand becomes just the tradition with less and less meaning.

“Nice, sitting on a small low chair and having simple dining at a corner of the Old Quarter”

travel-slowly — Thu, 8 Apr 2010 20:13:00 GMT

I had opportunity to have Pho, the typical dish in Vietnam. I knew now why Vietnamese people, especially women have good shape. Their foods always have vegetable as main ingredients. Pho is something like noodle in Thailand but the thing is it is very delicious when you ate it in such environment (yeh, we at "moment"), in the time we traveled. It is a feeling of getting close to local way of people there.

It was quite amazing that Pho is everywhere, at almost every corner at the Hanoi's Old Quarter. I had learned some local words to survive during my trip, especially for Pho menu. Let's see

Pho Bo means pho with beef

Pho Ga means pho with chicken

Ummm another frigthening thing for me is Cho--- dog meat. If you see a signpost above shops saying "cho", remember, they sells dogmeat, or has to do something with dog, for sure.

Umm I couldn't remember quite well for other words. I had noted them in my diary and if I have some free time, I will share with you!

Shopping mission at Old Quarter's Night Market

travel-slowly — Thu, 8 Apr 2010 19:32:00 GMT

“I found a purse that matches my favorite so I didn't hesitate to buy it. Of course, it wasn't much costly.”

Women are very meticulous especially when it comes to their personal things. Most of them can't leave their homes without carrying some sort of a bag for collecting their stuff. I am a woman, so I am that kind too. Talking about a bag, I got a purse (handbag) form Hanoi's Old Quarter shopping street. It was made of nice cloth. There is a broidery work on it. Very Vietnamese. I got a shining green one. Also baught one for my colleague.

Many other items were tempting me! and I couldn't stop myself to take a look. There are many small streets at this fabulous night market, more than enough to give us some entertainment and excitement. We noticed that most locals at least had "some things" to sell before their house (most houses are in 2-storey style designed for residential and commercial purpose). The livig is very colorful. What we noticed was the rows of cafe shops, pho corners, che (dessert), grilled sticked pork and "interesing" shop houses.

Lot of local people and visitors gathered there, walking leisurely at night. No shopping list but just lingering. I could feel the community and this reminded me of the night markets in Thailand. Every street at that night was crowed. I also had chance to play with a Vietnamese boy who was sitting relaxingly and happily on his father's strong shoulders. I thought he couldn't understand what I said to him but at least he smiled...

Water Puppet Show in Hanoi- Great Show!

travel-slowly — Thu, 8 Apr 2010 19:22:00 GMT

See and do in Hanoi: Water Puppet Show and walking for sightseeing, eating and shopping around the Old Quarter was pleasant, sort of opening my vison to the a new living culture of a country neighboring to Thailand. Driving in Hanoi is so chaos but surprising, few accidents seen happened. The Hoam Kien Lake nearby is enriched by legend and the story was brought into a scene in the puppet show....

“Lovely, sort of nostalgia to the picturesque, pastoral Northern Thailand living in the old days”

Three days living Pho!

travel-slowly — Thu, 8 Apr 2010 19:11:00 GMT

During my Vietnam trip with another 3 friends, I had a good time to try Vietnamese local food like Pho (Vietnamese noodle), Bun (Chinese noodle- like) and I got to learn Vietnamese language regarding foods like Pho Ga, meaning chicken noodle, Pho Bo, meaning beef noodle. I also tried Vietnamese sweets which are called Che (meaning desserts). I had sugar cane juice too, very fresh from the juice maker! "Thit Cho", if you see a signpost with these letters, it means that place sells foods having "dog meat" as ingredient! No No, I didn't try it. Dared not I. I'm not that Exotica- type! But I could say that this is the "living".

Hanoi the city of pho, cyclo, smoky smile, and more..

travel-slowly — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:08:00 GMT

This is my first time writing here through the blog provided by Worldnomads. But I have known this website for years. My first story, started quite long time enough to make me stuck in awhile to remind the story. To start, I would like to give you one word.. "Remarkable", it is for this trip. Hanoi, the city of sound chaos but peaceful enough in each little street. Many things amazed me once I arrived there. First of all, the excitement was there once I arrived the airport. Why? I just realized that my passport was another 2 months to be due to renewal. Ah ha. Imagine how excited and worried I was at that moment. Well, "think positive" I just talked to myself (Of course I could do nothing on the plane) Finally on arrival, the first thing while I was walking to those rows waiting to go through the passport checking process, was murmurring with myself and targeting which row I would be in. And I got an idea. Kind of psychological. "A man" I thought. "I should choose to close this situation with a male staff." It would be easier in negotiation. Umm, you may think this was non sense. But you know, it worked! He didn't ask anything and let me pass through. Haaaa sooo relieved I felt.

"Good morning Vietnam!!" I shouted! (alright, it was in my mind :)) Finally Hanoi was out there. I walked out the airport with confidence. The bus with a smiling man from the hostel was waiting for us, who was about to introduce us and other tourists to the "unique way of Vietnamese driving"! It seemed like the road meant nothing and it wasn't there! It seemed to me that the bus was shaking and crawling like a snake or simply and intentionally slipping out of its lane to another lane, and slipping back to its normal lane again when there was a vehicle coming in the opposite direction. Nothing I could do but looked at my friends' face and said "oh my Lord Buddha" "Am I gonna be alright in Hanoi?"

It was very noticeable that most of Vietnamese houses are very identical and unique in the style. I do not know if it is because of the high price of land or something, but the houses in Hanoi city look like the place that are designed to serve 2 purposes- living and commercial. And it is interesting to see that each house is very close to the same size. I guess that houses in Hanoi (and probably in Vietnam) are built in the same style- 2- storey building with small body. I just imagined how people live in those narrow blocks.

In around half an hour, we were in the middle of Hanoi city. Wow! It was such as lively cty. We were not sure what street we were on, but what we knew was that the bus stopped in front of a company (I thout it was a tour company) and the person who was supposed to be with us until we arrived the hostel, just got off the bus and let the driver who couldn't speak English be with us until we reached our accommodation. I couldn't remember what the name of the street was until I check the name in the photo taken at home (now I'm at the office while writing this blog!). Along the busy street where all kinds of drivings came to us and passed by, we felt pretty excited because of the buildings along the street. I could smell the strong smell of French colonial- styled architecture. In my opinion, yellow is the very outstanding colour and plays a distinctive role in those buildings. Since it was in the morning, life just began and people just lived their way, driving, riding, cycling and walking to work. The remarkable number of people cycling on the streets reminded me of my trip in Kunming. Both sides looked very lively with people chatting, smoking, drinking coffee and selling.

And while my friends and I were enjoying the scene of bustling Hanoi, the hostel was there on the right hand side of us. I tried to put the scene of the street where the hostel was situated in my memory so we could (perhaps) avoid getting lost when we went out. Well well well... every corner seemed to look exactly the same. Every street I had been passing seemed to have the same feeling, and of course, Vietnamese typical noodle "Pho" Yeh, we knew that time that our main course would be that delicious-looking noodle!.

The "place to make my life in Hanoi" was a kind of hostel, with only around over 100 and something in Thai Baht. Very chea, yes. We didn't want to spent too much money on accommodation since we knew that there were many other things waiting for us to spend for! And what we thought was true! I will tell youo later about that. We had booked 2 rooms for 4 persons. I stayed with my close friend. Another 2 were couples from USA (A ha, we had international friends with us! No, one is my Thai friend and another is her husband :) The room was ok in my opinion, value for money. We got 2 beds, toilet and furniture necessary, and hot water.. not electric. Um classic ha. The hostel also serves breakfast, which is good. This was something that impressed me as well. It's hard to see this kind of hot water jar used in hotels in Thailand. But probably this is a hostel, the name tells us that there are some characteristics with it.

One of the surprising happenings during my trip was that there was a Vietnamese man who, how could I say, begged for my love (ho ho ho). I guessed that he was just kidding. First of all we met on the table at the breakfast time on the second day. I knew that this man was a local Vietnamese man who worked there (not sure of he works in that hostel, but I saw him almost everyday). I knew from my friend that he liked me. But no really "active conversation" was among us. I remembered that almost the last day in Hanoi, he asked for my passport (he wanted to keep it so I could not go back home! Ha!) Actually I have a picture or two of me taking with him. One fact about Vietnamese men is that they have not very white teeth. Good that they have white face, actually they are white which make them look good. The reason why they have kind of black teeth is that they drink coffee and tea, and smoke on the daily basis. These all become their physical characteristics.

Small adventure took place on the second day when we managed to take a "recommended day trip" to the Perfume Pagoda. We baught a day trip at the hostel and later we found ourselves on a boat. The boat trip left a pier where I saw many locals living their life with the flow of tourists. Beside the river there were many boats waiting for tourists. I knew now that tourism business made a lot of monney here. Yet there still is the pastoral scene beside. The Perfume Pagoda is locally called Chua Huong, located in Huong son (which means "Perfume mountain"). The place is 70 km southwest of Hanoi. There, there are more than one temple, a cluster of temples and shrines there actually. Perfume Pagoda has a long history in Vietnamese literature. Its name has the meaning that reflects as theme in many songs, poetry, and it has been inspiring artists to create many literary works including paintings. The backdrop of the temple became a motif in many Vietnamese paintings reflecting the uniqueness of the picturesque mountains, river and forest where the temple has been nestled. This is why Northern Vietnam has been recognized as the place where beauty, arts and philosophy of the oriental unite. This boat trip gave me 3 feelings: first was that the scene along the river and in front of me was terriffic! So natural; second was about the weather.. it was so hot (fortunately I brought my hat.); and third was the destination, when we arrived, was a little bit touristic. Well it is the nice place with cave, cliff and good nature, but too many tourists....However, overall was an impressive trip. At least, along the boat trip. As someone says "Destination doesn't matter, the trip does" I really agree with this. A trip makes a journey....

Photos: Vietnam collection

travel-slowly — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:56:00 GMT

Vietnam the hidden charms