Last Saturday, Globolstaff’s branch in Vietnam had a trip to the Perfume Pagoda in Ha Tinh province. Visiting pagodas to pray for a peaceful and prosperous year is a tradition followed with fervor by Vietnamese devotees. Let see we had tried the trip Vietnamese style, praying and eating style. We had a great day!

We met up at Vinh University at 6am which was very difficult for everyone but we made it on time :). Everyone looked eager and happy although they are a bit sleepy on the bus and we started our journey after picking up some more friends and food for both offering and eating. My friends told me that this is not a really busy time to visit before a month of pagoda festivals but I still saw thousands of people there and most of them arrived earlier than us meaning they must have left their homes about 1 am or 2am or they came in the afternoon before stayed over night there.

We bought traditional bamboo hats to block the sun for 10,000 dong/each (about 65 cents).

Perfume Pagoda is such a beautiful place which reminds me of amazing scenery along the river. You sometimes can hear peoples' laughing echoing backwards and the sound of the lady who's paddling at the back. It is so peaceful and so nice to be there and I realized why people visit as their first place to pray for luck and happiness in the New Year. At first, everyone feels strong and healthy enough to walk to the gate of Pagoda without going by boat. The walk up was rough rock in concrete, which made for a beautiful path. Some had roofs that were built right over the path, providing shade and good places to stop and rest:

Our trip to the Perfume Pagoda involved spending hours hiking up through 9 successive hills, laughing and of course eating what we had earlier prepared. This is also the lookout where everyone takes photos because of it's beautiful and surrounded by hills and old trees. People also stop many times during the trip and take a deep breath before climbing up the Perfume Mountain to visit the main Alter. Everyone looked tired, thirsty and hungry

We visited 2 other Alters during the trip: Sister’s Temple and Brother’s Temple.

We climbed up into main Alter after 3 hour walking and I couldn't believe my eyes; the small pagoda was so packed, it was hard to move around. Hundreds of people who don't care about the heat tried to reach the altar inside the pagoda just to make a wish.

For those of you who don't know, a pagoda is a Buddhist temple in this part of the world. Many are buildings like any other temples, but some are built in sacred places like top of the highest mountain, such as this one.

We made it up to the top and down to the bottom but not the normal way that I used to climb up the mountain which took over 3 hours. We took a boat this time and it took us only 10 minutes for only 5,000VND/person return and I could see the whole beautiful area around. I know you may think we are so lazy not to walk but we wanted to try the new technology and I quite like it because at the time we’re back, we were exhausted :)

At the end of that day, we had a great party with each other: