2629 Courtyard of the Long Son Pagoda in Nha Trang. You can see the wheel of life on the gable of the temple and the Buddhist swastika above it. The carved stone lanterns and memorial stone as well as the carved granite fence are just behind the red pot.
2634 This is the dragon in ceramic tile that is just before the stairs leading to the temple entrance.
2658 This is the reclining Buddha surrounded by his disciples. He’s 46 feet long.
2661 The 80-foot tall White Buddha at the top of the hill above Long Son Pagoda.
2688 The Xom Bong Bridge over the Cai River. You can see the blue and white boats that are part of the fishing fleet here. Nha Trang in in the background.
Oct 22 – At sea. Another totally routine day at sea. Our entertainer was Wu Man, a Chinese lady in her 30s that’s a world renowned pipa player. The pipa is probably the forefather of most fretted stringed instruments. According to Wu there are records of the pipa going back over 4,000 years. The oldest pictures show it being played in a mostly horizontal position like a guitar or banjo. Sometime in history it turned to a more vertical position like a cello but it’s played using all your fingers. In fact they tape curved picks onto the ends of their fingers because the strings are not plucked in the normal manner by closing the fingers toward the palm of the hand but by moving the fingers to the extended position from a more closed beginning. Very strange. The music was unmistakably Chinese and she played traditional and modern tunes. It was an enjoyable evening. I did hear the tourists among us travelers whining about the fact that the music was strange and they were not happy about wasting time coming to the performance. Ouch!!
American Cultural Note: Makes you a little sad to be an American. Such constricted, narrow-mindedness is not really an attractive trait. To be fair, it should be stated that the whiners are orders of magnitude better than the rude, thoughtless and socially stunted idiots that actually sat right up front and then walked out after the first number. There are lots of not very noticeable seats at the rear of the theater and back of the balcony that you can sit in if you just can’t stand to spend 45 minutes listening to or watching something that displeases you. I don’t really like jugglers or mimes although sometimes one will surprise me and have a worthwhile act. I usually sit in the seats I’ve mentioned just in case but can honestly say that I have never left a performance until it is over. I might daydream and not pay much attention but I’ve got enough empathy with the performer not to turn my back on him/her/them and walk out.
Oct 23 - Nha Trang, Viet Nam. I have somewhat conflicted feelings about coming to Viet Nam. Our first port of Nha Trang is very close to Da Nang. We’re only here from 8am to 3pm or I might have tried to get a taxi to take me up there. There was an Army base here in Nha Trang but I never visited it. The country was beautiful back then and it still is now. The rainy season is on and the humidity is really high. It usually rains here every day, mostly in the afternoon during the wet season. In the middle of the wet season it rains all day every day. Viet Nam is an S shaped country that’s almost all coastline where we are in the central region. Just south of the demilitarized zone, situated just north of Da Nang, the country’s only about 30 miles wide and most of the central section is not much wider. The north and south are both much wider and larger but here in the middle it’s very narrow.
We are docked at the Nha Trang pier a little way from town and it’s obviously the home of a small fishing fleet. The locals have set up a little market on the pier right next to the boat. Prices here are a little shocking until you remember that you get almost 20,000 Dong for 1 US$. Something priced at 1,000,000 Dong is just over $50US. In fact, the locals here don’t really want Dong, it’s been devalued so often it’s not considered stable. US dollars are the currency of choice.
Driving through town I couldn’t help but notice the trash containers in the public parks. The container itself is a blue barrel with yellow trim around the top and bottom. What makes them attractive is that each is being held from behind by a panda whose head extends above the opening for the trash. The panda is hugging the barrel from behind and has a huge grin on his face. I’ve seen more artistic attempts to enliven trash cans, but never anything more attractive.
Many of the motorbike and scooter riders are wearing large surgical masks that cover every part of the face but the eyes. Our guide says that they wear them because of the dust and pollution; I suspect they just don’t want to be identifiable when they hit someone with their bike. Full disclosure requires me to say that they are way more organized and easier to predict than Italians on scooters but they do buzz around like a swarm of angry hornets.
Our first visit was to the Long Son Pagoda. It was founded in the 1800s and is currently the home to about 10 monks. We did encounter several young students that are also living there. The decoration in the entrance is quite remarkable, mosaic dragons made of both glass and ceramic tile. One in particular was striking. The dragon is looking directly out of the tile at the observer. He’s done in red, white and blue and has the Buddhist swastika above his head. Looks just like the German swastika except it’s exactly backward. The German swastika is made up of 4 fours with their long horizontal strokes intersecting; the Buddhist swastika doesn’t form any fours. It’s a little odd but this same design in found on ancient buildings and carvings in the American southwest.
When you enter the first courtyard you are facing the temple. In front of the temple is a memorial stone flanked by 4 stone lanterns. All five objects are finely carved as is the ornate granite fence that keeps you from approaching the memorial stone too closely. You have to pass on either side of the area to approach the temple itself.
The temple is divided into three spaces by altars. When you first enter there’s an altar about six feet inside upon which sets a figure with 11 heads and at least 36 arms. There could be as many as 40. Each of the arms is holding a Buddhist symbol, a lotus, the wheel of life, a sword, a temple, etc. Many of them were unrecognizable to me. Since the figure is sitting in a lotus blossom I’m assuming it’s a Buddha of some sort, I just don’t know which one. I’m actually not very good at Hindu and Buddhist symbolism. Give me a good ole cathedral and I do ok. The statue is gilded and has a large gold disk behind it. When you examine the disk closely it’s made up of hundreds, if not thousands, of hands. The name of one Qi Gong form we’ve learned is ‘1,000 Hands Buddha’ and I’m wondering if this is its namesake.
After passing around this altar there’s a large open space with another Buddha. This one is very Tibetan in styling with a robe wrapped over one shoulder and a head covered with closely cropped curly black hair. On the altar are the usual flower, fruit and candle offerings as well as a small golden Buddha, also Tibetan style, but with his entire upper body wrapped in his robe. In front of the altar is a large ceramic pot with sand in it to stand your incense stick in.
Behind this Buddha and on a raised platform is another Buddha, once again Hindu in style, but with an open chested robe that covers both shoulders. He has the Buddhist swastika on his chest. This altar is tiered and on each tier there are offerings of the typical types. There are two other Buddhas on the tiers of the altar directly below him. The one closest to him is the Happy Buddha, very Chinese in form, below Happy is the Reclining Buddha or Buddha in Nirvana, again very Tibetan.
As we left the temple I noticed six paintings depicting the Jataka (birth of the Buddha, not the physical birth, the spiritual one), three above the entry and three on the back of the screen at the first altar.
Outside the temple there’s a set of stone stairs leading up the mountain. About 50 stairs up you encounter a 46-foot reclining Buddha. This one I know. It commemorates the original Buddha reaching Nirvana. The very contented smile on his face is testament to the fact that he’s feeling just fine. He’s got the Wheel of Life and the Buddhist swastika carved in the instep of both feet.
Up the hill 106 more stone steps is the white Buddha. The last 15 steps are a very broad staircase with large, carved dragons serving as hand rails. Sitting on his lotus blossom in the full sun the seated Buddha made an impressive sight. He’s almost 80 feet tall from the lotus to the top of his head and pure white.
There’s a door in the back of the Buddha’s base and inside are some very beautifully carved walls with 4-5 foot tall bronze reliefs of various Buddhas inlaid into the carvings. I’d never been inside a large Buddha before. It was pretty impressive. Around the outside of the base they have the portraits of the nuns and monks who immolated themselves in the 60s in protest of the Diem regime’s corruption. Each portrait is framed with flames
The peak also provides some nice views of Nha Trang. Between the Buddha and the views, it was worth climbing the stairs on this hot and very humid day. We drove a little more out of town across Cai River on the Xom Bong Bridge to an extremely interesting sight, the Po Nagar, Cham Towers.
Not much is known about the Cham people and almost nothing directly from them. Most of what we know is from Chinese history and the surviving religious structures and artwork the empire created. (I don’t know about you but when one culture writes a history of another culture, I take it with a huge grain of salt.) The Chan created their Hindu empire here in central Viet Nam in the 2nd century AD, organized around Da Nang. By the 10th century internal struggles and external warfare started to erode their civilization. The Cham Empire was completely gone by the early 1800s but they still exist as a distinct ethnic group in Viet Nam. Despite years of pressure to assimilate they still have their own culture, traditions and language. The written form is derived from Sanskrit and the spoken system in the Malayo-Polynesian family, like Hawaiian or the Maori of New Zealand. (I hope I’ve got that straight because I know I have some linguists reading this mess.) The customs of the current people group are a blend of Hindu and Islam, to which many have converted.
Originally there were 8 kalan (towers) but only 4 remain. Actually I’d describe them more as mini-temples as you can enter them if you take your shoes off and each has an altar and at least one deity inside. They were constructed between the 7th and 12th centuries and the architectural differences in the four make it likely that they were built in different periods.
When you first arrive at the tower site you pass a hall of pillars that reminded me of the hypostyle hall in Luxor at the Temple of Karnack. I’m not sure if these pillars ever had a roof but they are so close together it would not have been a difficult job to put one on. There are 12 shorter pillars, one at the start of each of the two center rows and then five more in each of the outside rows. In each of the two center rows there are five pillars of almost double the height following the initial shorter pillar. If you’ve followed my somewhat wordy explanation you will arrive at a total of 22 pillars, 12 short, 10 tall, arranged with five short towers on the outside rows and one leading short tower followed by five taller towers on the two inside rows.
If you walk between the central tall towers you wind up at the base of a very steep set of stairs leading up to the tower site. If this were a European cathedral I’d say these were penance stairs, made to be climbed on one’s knees as an act of repentance for one’s sins. A very short way from the top of the stairs is the entrance to the largest tower on the sight. This would be a rigorous and dangerous way to get to the top so a gently rising curved stairway has been put in at the left side of the site.
The largest and most ornate tower is dedicated to Po Nagar, aka Lady Thien Y-ana, aka Bharagari, who is revered as the mother of the Cham people. It’s constructed like three buildings connected by doors through common walls, each building is successively wider, deeper and taller. The first is a small entry way, the second contains some relics including some tablets listing various rulers and a rather large linga. The third 75-foot tall section is the main temple room with the altar and likeness of Po Nagar. She’s dressed in gold with a beautifully ornate, jeweled headdress and more pearl and jewel necklaces than a rap star. She’s flanked by two of those weird Hindu parasols with tassels. I guess I view them as weird because they’re usually taller than they are wide. Not a very utilitarian design for a parasol. The altar in front of her was brimming with offerings of flowers and fruit. Only a few sticks of incense were stuck into the sand filled bowl. She is joined by two other smaller side altars dedicated to ladies I could not identify.
There are three towers side by side on the north side of the plaza. The first on the east is Po Nagar’s. The central tower is dedicated to Cri Cambhu and is currently used as a fertility temple for childless couples. It’s smaller, shorter and the dome on the main structure is much less ornate than Po Nagar’s. It does have significant architectural detail on the lower part of the buildingEssentially it omits the entry structure and only has two rooms, both smaller than the ones in Po Nagar’s tower.
The westernmost tower is dedicated to Sandhaka, a woodcutter and Po Nagar’s foster-father. It is by far the smallest of the four towers that remain. Only two steps up to get in and a much shorter, although more ornate, dome on the main tower. I didn’t bother to take my shoes off again to go in because the altar and image could be easily seen from the entry room’s outer door.
The only tower on the south side of the area is a medium sized tower dedicated to Ganeca, daughter of Po Nagar. While it is not large it is ornately done. The main structure’s tower is ornate and complex and the outside of the building is decorated with a multitude of carvings. The largest single carving is on the back of the tower. It’s a girl riding an elephant. It’s shown coming right at the viewer and has suffered over the ages but it’s still easily recognizable. The elephant is clearly the small eared Indian type and is shown with its trunk curled up at the end like a fishhook. The places where the tusks extended from the head can also be easily seen. The upper body and head of the girl are in very good condition.
A family of Chan people were sharing a picnic lunch at one of the tables around the edge of the site. Clearly it was a festive occasion; the women were mostly in traditional Vietnamese long split dresses over white pajama style pants. One little girl with beautiful almond shaped eyes was watching me with great interest. She smiled and we exchanged greetings. Overhearing the exchange, an older woman, probably the family matriarch, gestured that I should come over and get something to eat. I returned her smile and politely, I hope, declined and pointed to my camera. She didn’t seem put-off by my refusal and smiled again while she returned to her food prep duties. I think she was high in the family structure because she and one other older lady were on one side of the long table and everyone else, all younger, were crowded around the other side and the ends. She and the other older lady were the only ones wearing head scarves.
This is easily the most intriguing place we’ve been so far on this trip. I’m not sure exactly what the internal mechanism is but I am always fascinated by the remains of cultures that are somewhat mysterious. Take, for example, the Moche and Chimu cultures, predecessors to the Inca in Peru. Their lack of an alphabet and the fact that they were gone before Spanish historians came to South America left us with little information about them. We have only their structures and the decorations to help us understand their values and traditions.
After visiting the towers we drove to an embroidery facility where you could watch women doing the ultrafine embroidery for which the orient is known.
As a bit of a postscript to the day I should note that one additional ethnic group was well represented here in Nha Trang, Russians. The area has great beaches and is relatively inexpensive. There was a young Russian couple at the Cham towers trying to figure out how to get a good backdrop for taking a picture. I stopped to point out an angle of the pillars I’d used earlier and asked if they wanted me to take a picture of the two of them. All in hand gestures because I have very little Russian that’s not menu related and they had no English. They seemed pleased to get a picture of the two of them together and I was rewarded with big smiles and a warm ‘spasibo (sp?), which if remember correctly is ‘thank you’.
Our entertainment for the evening was a song and dance show by the ship’s cast. It was good and not a single Andy song. Yippee!! Maybe the reign of terror is almost over.
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