A new adventure every day…

HANOI, VIETNAM – It’s a new adventure every time we step out of the apartment. Seriously, it really is. Take today for instance. Soon you get to know your neighborhood, the stores, the market and what is around. Hanoi just has soooo much!

Today we stepped out of the apartment at about 1 p.m. – lunch time. There were motorbikes parked everywhere; I mean everywhere. “That’s different,” we thought.

“Someone else is getting married?” (They put up a tent and fill up a street often and have a big dinner or something.)

No, we don’t see a wedding, but we do see people everywhere eating lunch, standing, parking their bikes, getting out of cabs, traffic jams. We figure it must be something happening at the local temple, a block away, but we could not get close. There also was a very large group of men filling up one of the intersections looking at something in the center of the group, but it was so packed, John could not get close enough to get a hint there either.

Our mission was to get a book at the book store and pull cash from the ATM for rent

Our mission today was to get a book from the used book store and get to a big bank ATM to pull out enough money for rent. Oh, yes, and to walk around the lake for our exercise.

Good enough. The sun was out and it was warm and inviting. Getting to the book store was a little more work than usual, due to the traffic, both foot and vehicle. It’s only a few blocks away and we remember there is an ATM close to that store.

We get our book and are off to the ATM. Except, we don’t see it where we thought it would be. There seem to be a lot of things not where we think they are. Especially if you Google it. The laundry turned out to be on the next street over from where the online map said. Sigh.

Anyway, we don’t see the ATM. OK, so we are going for our walk around the lake and we know there is another ATM – many actually – over on the other side of the lake.

That was a great walk in the sunshine. Crossed a few more streets, got what we needed from the ATM and continued back down to the lake and our walk around.

There’s a wonderful temple complex along the walk

There is a wonderful temple complex along the walk, Trấn Quốc Pagoda, that shoots out into the lake for about an acre. So far, we have only been able to walk up to the gate as it seems to only be open for certain festivals. As we get closer, there are more people walking around, more vendors selling handicrafts, incense, merchandise, goldfish, live turtles of all sizes, you name it. AND we see people going into the temple! Yippee? We get to go in.

Inside the gate is a wonderful temple complex of buildings, stupas, gigantic bonsai trees in huge vases, and wonderful shrines. People are all over the place, bringing incense, food and prayers to their ancestors. The shrines are so full, worshipers spill out the doors and onto the temple grounds, praying even outside the shrine. There are long tables overflowing with food and incense offerings.

There is also a huge incense urn, about four feet across and chest high, burning a thousand pieces of incense. Smoke rises from the stone floor in front of it, too, from all the ash and dropped sticks.

Tourists and worshipers alike are taking photos everywhere. The entire complex is abuzz with activity. There is a monk doing the prayers over a loud speaker. He stops and everyone kneels to pray quietly for a long time. Some of the older women, just before entering the temple, put on a thin cotton brown “robe” that covers up to their neck and down over their dress. We could not figure out what was the reason. We’ll have to ask someone later.

All the (hand) carved granite stone walls were spectacular – each one a different scene. We took a bunch of pictures with our cell phone. John had decided not to carry his camera that day – of course.

And there’s a huge ancient Bodhi tree in the courtyard sitting in a very large lotus flower base. It’s an important tree. According to the write-up on Wikipedia, it grew from a cutting from “the original tree in Bodh Gaya, India, under which the Buddha sat and achieved enlightenment. The gift was made in 1959, marking the visit of the Indian president Rajendra Prasad.”

We stayed at least an hour watching, listening, taking it all in. As we walked around, we saw a temple lady collecting the money that worshipers toss into the various offering sites. She could not reach all the way back into one of them, so John reached his long arm into the nook and brought out the money for her – several handfuls of currency. She was very grateful.

Guess John will get to heaven after all…