hoa lu and its temples

at a stopover shop to hoa lu...taking a photo with a vietnamese???

and with a korean???

classic farmer chasing his ducks and ducklings around...

entrance to the temple of king dinh tien hoang
(the chinese characters i think means "a door to lock invaders from the north")





















inside one of the temples...





















only the king walks thru the centre...now there is tall step build thru the door so that when people pass thru the door, they will have to "bow" to pay respect to the king

the sedan that was used in the past to carry kings





















farmer relaxing while the ox works hard on the field

some of the beautiful sceneries we took there...



3rd day...we set off for our hoa lu and ninh binh tour pacakge that we took from our hotel...US$12 per person...joined by few other foreigners along the way...we headed down first to hoa lu in a 2 hrs journey ride in this small mini-bus...of cos, we slept our way thru the ride cos we slept pretty late last night due to the "night talk"...haha...hoa lu was the capital of vietnam during the dinh and early le dynasties...it was a good geographical location as the town is surrounded by mountains in the south, east and west...the defenders could just watch over the plains to the north for any chinese invasion...2 main temples were constructed to honor the 2 king of the 2 dynasties...namely the temple of king dinh tien hoang and the temple of king le dai hanh...the temples' walkways are usually built such that when viewed from the top, it will symbolise a "王" character which means "king" in chinese...few stories surrounds the temples and of the kings...but i think we can't really recalled much right now...haha...thou i remembered dawn took motion-sickness pill before embarking on the tour, and when we got down for the temples visit, she was virtually just half-conciously walking around haha...