07.11. Gold in abundance

As announced, today we devoted ourselves a little to the cultural side of Ninh Binh, as we were able to admire the stunning nature of this area yesterday.

So we set off on our bikes for three-quarters of an hour and visited the Bai Dinh temple complex.

Originally, there was only a very small "Old Temple" in a cave, which looked very mysterious and cozy. In addition to two arrangements of Buddha statues, there was a small cave lake guarded by dragons, above which many bats slept upside down from the ceiling.

At the beginning of this century, the largest temple complex in Vietnam was built in front of the mountain with the "Old Temple", which covers an area of 700 hectares and is adorned with several magnificent temples lined up one after the other with a view of the nearby lake. In each of these temples, one was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of gold, as there was always at least one huge golden statue gazing down at you.

On all walls of the large temples and on a wall that enclosed the entire main area, there were several rows of Buddhas stacked on top of each other. Given the sheer size of the complex, one does not want to imagine the number of these smaller statues...

In addition to the three large new temples, there was also a bell tower in the middle of the complex with a 36-ton bell, the weight of a truck. There was also a large pagoda, the tallest in Southeast Asia, on the site, which was already visible from a distance due to its incredible size. You could also see a large statue on a high pedestal from a distance, which could overlook and monitor the entire complex and the surrounding region of the lake.

In addition to the aforementioned wall with the many inset Buddhas, there were countless other stone statues, all of which were different, so it was impressive enough just to walk along this long corridor around the site and look at the statues as you passed by. By the way, all of these matte statues had polished shiny bellies, hands and/or feet, as it is believed in Buddhist faith that touching these body parts brings good luck, so anyone who passes by the statues will stroke them.

Since the area was so large, we spent about three and a half hours on foot at these Bai Dinh temples. When we wanted to continue our journey, the weather did not cooperate for the first time on the trip (since today we have been away for exactly one month) and it poured for about two hours. We actually wanted to visit the Ancient Capital, the former temporary capital of Vietnam, where a few scattered temples and houses still stand. However, after the rain, which we waited out in a restaurant, it was already quite late and we didn't know how long the place would stay open, as most things close here at 5 pm. Since we also didn't have lights on our bikes and it gets very dark around 5:30 pm, which was already approaching, we decided to make our way back to the hostel to spend the last day in Ninh Binh in peace. Tomorrow we will continue early to Cat Ba Island, from where we will take a trip to the famous Halong Bay.

Once again, thank you very much for reading the blog for one month now. It's always nice to see that someone is still interested in my time here and takes the time to read it.