Dinh & Le Temples - Hoa Lư the Ancient Capitol

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19/2/10 - The Dinh and Le Temples are located in Ninh Binh province, and are surrounded by hill country. This is also the site of Hoa Lư, the former ancient capitol of Vietnam before the seat of power moved to Hanoi 1000 years ago. For this reason Hoa Lư is one of Vietnam’s important cultural and historical sites. A visit here also helps put the story of Hanoi in historical perspective.

The layout of the Le Temple reminded us a lot of a mini temple of literature. Despite the rain there were many visitors to the temples and it is interesting to watch how the Vietnamese visitors use these cultural sites. They are not just buildings of great beauty; all the local visitors use them to pay respect to their ancestors and the families that the temples were originally built to honor. It was nice to see so many family groups enjoying these sites.

Lorenza and I were approached by a lot of young people wanting to try out their English. Perhaps our usually happy faces attract them? Hang seemed to think we had some kind of magnetic attraction and she teased me a lot about how many young girls approached me. Many of the young people also asked if they could take photos with us and others wanted to be included in photos we were taking. Mike, Hang and Lorenza jokingly agreed that the attraction to me was because of the brown monk coloured beanie I was wearing so the young girls felt safe to approach me - funny!

These two temples were very peaceful places to visit. The layout and design of the grounds and buildings seemed to naturally radiate a lot of inner peace inside you despite there being a lot of visitors. Obviously the ancient designers knew what they were about.

Interestingly, I read in the info on the ancient capitol that King Le Thai To trained his navy in the river in this area and then sailed from here to the current site of Hanoi. He saw the clouds reflected in the waters of the Red River in Hanoi in the shape of a dragon. He knew by this that he had found a suitable site for a prosperous capitol.

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