The Perfume Pagoda

---

The visit to the mountain caves of Chua Huong was just as much about the journey there as the pagoda itself. After a two hour drive we arrived at the Song Yen River (or 'stream' as they called it. In Australia it would be a 'mighty river'). We were rowed up the river for an hour and a half by a Vietnamese girl who must have had arms of steel. She rowed in what seemed an awkward manner, facing the bow and pushing rather than pulling the oars. The final picture includes our oarswoman and there are a few pictures showing the women in action. The river itself was very shallow and, at times crystal clear. On the sides of the river workers toil away preparing their rice fields for planting. These are very hardworking and very poor people. They trudge through the muddy fields, hoeing the muddy soil and building levee walls by hand.
After arrival at the upper river you can choose to walk up to the pagoda or, believe it or not, take a gondola. This has been a recent development and does the local people well. One could argue it takes away the spirit of the adventure, but the jobs provided and the subsequent tourist dollars that will flow in will do these people lot of good. They work hard and really deserve the dollars tourists will bring.
Tom and I walked up the paved mountain path. Along the way are small workers camps. They work and live in the camps and build the paths and other simple infrastructure such as the beauitiful climbing staircase seen in a few of our photos. There are two smaller pagodas on the way. There are some pictures of those on the site. The perfume Pagoda itself is a large open cave. The most stunning feature being the huge stalagmite at the entrance. This is the dragon's tooth. Walking through to the rear you come upon the very holy Buddhist worship site. The monk continuously chants and burns incense and the whole place is covered with images and statues of Buddhist Gods.
Eventually we were rowed back to the village in the same way we had come. A great way to spend New Year's Eve but we were pretty tired and had an early night (though we saw Sydney's fireworks at about 7pm on TV).

---