The sweet frangrance of life - Perfume Pagoda.

We are in Hanoi for five days, but by the dawn of the fourth I need to escape.  Hanoi is just too energetic for me.  Everywhere we turn there is a kaleidoscopic whirlwind of activity - be it dodging bride after bride in stunning outfits and serene smiles striking the pose -along with their grooms – as we attempt to stroll around Hoan Kiem Lake and try not to 'photo bomb' the happy couples (we stop counting couples when we hit the double digits), or ducking into the Vietnamese Women’s Museum only to find it is hosting a book fair in its courtyard and moving through the throng of excited bibliophiles is like trying to cross ‘beer corner’.  I couldn’t even dive in and join them as most of the books were in Vietnamese and the extent of my Vietnamese is ‘xin chow',. Or being brought to a sobering thud when we visit the Military Museum to try and make head and tail of the horrors this nation has endured for thousands of years, only to find the museum is hosting an event for the dignitaries of the 132nd Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly conference which is happening in Hanoi right this moment.   

 

Booking a private driver for the day, we make an early morning start and zip out of the city away from the mayhem and buzz.  Away from the old quarter we soon discover there is a very modern side to Hanoi and we pass high-rise after high-rise and upmarket suburb after suburb.   Soon we come to the countryside and the pace begins to become gentler – rice fields and duck ponds flash past the widows and every now and then we spy a village.  An hour later we arrive to the small sleepy village of My Duc with ornate pagodas surrounded by ponds filled with scruffy yellow adolescent ducks and a backdrop of white limestone karst cliffs of the Huong Tich Mountains, or sweetly nicknamed – the Mountain of Fragrant Traces.  Next to where we stop is a waterway, filled to the brim of blue aluminium row boats, some seating ten, some only six, and a couple with beautiful dragon head bows.  Our driver – who introduced himself as Brian, but is actually named Tan – organises a small boat to take us to the delightfully named Perfume Pagoda complex, five kilometres up the Day River. I have visions of me tumbling into the waters as I try to keep my tourist paraphernalia of cameras, water bottles, daypacks and handbag up out of the water as we clamour over the bobbing vessels to reach our boat which sits practically in the middle of the ‘harbour’.  Why is it I always turn into a hoarder-cum-baglady whenever I go on holidays? I think to myself.