Nature and Man in Ninh Bình

                                                                         by Jim Goodman

limestone hill and pagoda on the way in to Hoa Lư

       In 938 Vietnamese forces expelled the Chinese, vanquished a naval counter-attack and re-claimed independence.  Their leader Ngô Quyền established the former ancient capital of Cổ Loa as the new state’s capital and founded a new dynasty.  Unfortunately, he died in 944, igniting a power struggle among a dozen or more princes that lasted 24 years. The fledgling state’s sovereignty remained intact, as China was involved in its own succession crisis, but stability proved elusive.

       Finally, in 968 Đinh Bộ Lĩnh emerged victorious and founded a new dynasty.  He also moved the capital to his own hometown at Hoa Lư, about 90 km south in present-day Ninh Bình province.  Just outside of the flat Red River Delta plains, surrounded by protective limestone hills, it was a more secure location than Cổ Loa.  In reaction to the anarchy and violence common to the land since Ngô Quyền’s death, Đinh Bộ Lĩnh ruled with a firm hand, laying down laws and strictly upholding them.  He is said to have kept a cauldron and a caged tiger at his court, vowing that anyone who broke the law would be boiled in the cauldron and eaten by the tiger.

temple to Đinh Bộ Lĩnh in Hoa Lư

       A Court eunuch assassinated both Đinh Bộ Lĩnh and his eldest son in 979, leaving a six-year-old as heir.  Seeking to reassert control, Song Dynasty China launched an expedition against Vietnam.  The Court and Queen Mother then offered the throne to Lê Hoàn, the state’s top general and then acting Regent.  He married the widow and founded a new dynasty, but one of his opponents fled to the Chăm state of Indrapura and persuaded its king to mount an expedition to install him in power.  The Chăm navy got nearly all the way to Hoa Lư when a sudden storm destroyed the entire fleet.  The Vietnamese pretender and many Chăm warriors drowned.  Only the king’s ship got away and returned home. 

       Lê Hoàn then took his army north and repelled the Chinese invasion.  Following that, in 982 he mounted a campaign against the Chăm.  In their very first engagement the Vietnamese forces defeated the Chăm, killed the king and marched on Indrapura.  The new king fled and the Vietnamese looted the temples and palaces of their treasures and razed the city to the ground.  They also captured and took back to Hoa Lư 100 palace maids and an Indian monk.

 

rice planting in Tràng An Scenic Area

      Chăm raids resumed several years later until 990, when Lê Hoàn led another punitive expedition.  After that the southern frontier was relatively quiet.   Lê Hoàn ruled 25 years and stability returned to the land at last.  In the ensuing power struggle after his death in 1005, the eventual winner Lý Công Uẩn in 1010, with security assured both north and south, moved the capital to Hanoi. 

       Hoa Lư reverted to a village and its palaces and other ancient buildings disappeared.  Over a thousand years later it has become a major tourist destination, mainly because it lies adjacent to one of the most scenic areas in the country, known today as ‘Hạ Long Bay on Land’ for the limestone pillars and steep hills that jut up from the rice paddies.  This becomes evident right after the turn-off to the ancient city a little north of Ninh Bình.  A stately, multi-tiered pagoda stands in the saddle of a limestone hill typical of the area.  As a reminder of contemporary symbolism, though, a little further down the road another hill features a concrete hammer and sickle on its ridge. 

rowing with the feet

       No attempt has been made to recreate Hoa Lư’s ancient city, other than the entry gate and a few pavilions, but at the south end stand temples to the founders of the two dynasties that ruled here.  Both compounds were reconstructed in the 17^th century.  The temple to Đinh Bộ Lĩnh is a little larger and includes a pond in the courtyard.  That to Lê Hoàn stands nearby.  Đinh Bộ Lĩnh’s tomb lies high up the Mả Yên Hill opposite his temple.  Lê Hoàn’s tomb is at the foot of this hill. .

       One has a good view of Hoa Lư and its surroundings from up Mã Yên Hill, but it’s just a foretaste of the more spectacular views further south. The entire karst landscape area, from Hoa Lư through the Tam Cốc area south and as far west as the massive Bái Đính Buddhist temple, comprises the Tràng An Scenic Area.  In 2014 it won admission to the list of World Heritage Sites.  

boats on the Ngô Đồng River

entering the first of the Tam Cốc caves

       Just before the entry gate, a road bends around Hoa Lư and turns south.  Whether traveling by car, motorbike or bicycle, this is one of the most enchanting rides in the province.  To the east everything is flat, but in all other directions limestone hills, not particularly high, at most a few hundred meters, but steeply sided and in often arresting shapes, dominate the landscape. 

exiting a Tam Cốc cave

       The most popular way to enjoy this scenery is by taking a boat trip on the Ngô Đồng River.  The area is called Tam Cốc, which means Three Caves, and refers to the three caves in the hills through which the journey passes.  Because its such a popular tourist adventure, passengers can find themselves besieged by local people in small boats, which they sometimes row with their feet, trying to sell them snacks for the ride or a drink for their pilot. They also hawk embroidered napkins, pillowcases, tablecloths and t-shirts, produced by the village next to the docks (where there’s a better selection at cheaper prices).   

taking cattle to graze

       This kind of harassment only characterizes the first part of the journey, however.  It ceases when the boats begin to enter the first of the caves.  From then on passengers can relish the scenery without distraction.  The boats glide into caves at the foot of tall, sheer cliffs for lengths of 127, 70 and 40 meters, and emerge through low exits that may require passengers to duck their heads. Altogether the ride takes two to three hours.

       But the river journey is not the only way to appreciate the surroundings.  One can also rent a bicycle or motorbike and explore sites not accessible by boat, as well as follow roads deeper into the hills.  Besides different perspectives on the multitude of oddly shaped hills, the spaces in between feature hamlets, temples, rice fields and groves.  Farmers may be planting or cropping rice, taking their cattle along the dikes to their grazing grounds, or standing in small boats that they pole along the river.  It’s rural scenery and serenity at its best.

Tràng An countryside oagoda

       A few km north of the boat landing a road leads west to Đền Thái Vi, a small but attractive temple, built in 1258 during the reign of Trần Thái Tông to celebrate Vietnam’s defeat of the first Mongol invasion.  A two-tiered gate stands at the entrance, flanked by a stone horse on each side.  The temple itself is a rather modest single-story stone building at the end of the pathway.  But on its right stands am elegant, two-story pavilion with thick wooden pillars and curved, tiled roofs.  It is one of the oldest extant wooden buildings in the country.

Tràng An limestone scenery 

       The limestone hills of Tràng An also include a few impressive caves.  Local people have traditionally believed these spots to be sacred.  They set up religious shrines inside, such as at the small cave on the way in to Hoa Lư, or turn them into Buddhist temples, like Chùa Bích Động, a few km west of the boat landing.  The temple compound dates its origin to 1428, the year Lê Lợi restored native rule after 20 years of Chinese occupation and founded the Lê Dynasty.  Two wandering monks discovered the caves here, at the base of a large hill flanking a long stretch of flat rice fields.  Stone steps, passing buildings mostly commissioned by the Trịnh Lords in the 18^th century, lead to three separate caves and their array of Buddha images and small shrines in the walls.

Thái Vi Temple 

       Other Buddhist monuments lie scattered throughout the Tràng An Scenic Area.  These include the massive Bái Đình Temple, sited on a mound to the southwest and enlarged with new buildings earlier this century to become the biggest Buddhist compound in Vietnam.  Smaller temples, some embedded in the hillside, grace every village, while pagodas stand beside ponds and up in the hills.

       On the other side of Highway 1A, however, south and east of Ninh Bình city, the land is devoid of hills and completely flat, intersected with canals along the rice fields.  Rather than pagodas, the steeples of Catholic churches dominate the landscape.  This is one of the most heavily Catholic areas in the north and has been ever since the Portuguese missionary Alexander de Rhodes first preached here in 1627.   

entrance to CHùa Bích Động cave temple

       Nearly all the village churches look like they were plucked from the French countryside and set up in Ninh Bình province.  A couple look like smaller, more modest versions of Notre Dame in Paris.  The outstanding exception is Phát Diệm Cathedral in Kim Sơn village, 30 km south of Ninh Bình city.  Built in the late 19^th century, it combines European and Sino-Vietnamese elements in a unique style and has become popular with Vietnamese tourists, mostly non-Catholic.

       Besides the cathedral compound, Kim Sơn also features another architectural gem—an 18^th century covered wooden bridge.  Supported by two pairs of thick pillars, fenced on each side and with a tiled roof, it spans the stream near the churches and is one of a handful of such bridges in the country.  Kim Sơn would be worth a visit just for this beautiful old bridge, but of course it is Phát Diệm Cathedral that is the main draw.    

French-style Catholic church east of Ninh Bình

       It’s in the shape of a basic Gothic church, but the tiered roofs of its cupolas, with upturned corners, suggest local pagodas grafted onto the building.  Trầm Luc, also known as Father Six, designed it and oversaw its construction.  The stone blocks of the buildings came from quarries in Thanh Hóa province, 200 km distant.  To install the enormous, two-ton bronze bell in the tower behind the pond and in front of the cathedral, workers built an earthen ramp to lug it to the top.  Afterwards they packed the earth around the base of the church, raising the ground level by one meter and offering some protection against floods.  Carvers also added low-relief sculptures of Christian imagery on the exterior walls.

Phát Diêm Cathedral belltower

       Inside the cathedral 52 ironwood pillars, one meter thick, some of them eleven meters high, support the vault.  The lacquered and gilded granite altar, made from a single stone, sits at the rear.   The wall behind it displays the portraits of around thirty missionaries, mostly European, but the side walls contain not only angels and saints, but also such distinctly Oriental images like dragons, turtles and phoenixes.  

       Behind the cathedral stand a couple more churches.  These lean even more heavily to the native style, seemingly modeled on the compound gates of Nguyễn Dynasty temples and communal houses.  Only the crosses on top and the statues make it clear these are churches and not Buddhist temples.

Phát Diêm Cathedral

       After 1945, when the Việt Minh stepped up the campaign against French colonialism, the Vietnamese Catholic Church was a powerful political force, virtually free of French administrative control.  Phát Diệm’s bishop at the time was an avowed anti-French nationalist, but also opposed to the communists.  Hoping to take advantage of the latter sentiment, French authorities allowed the bishop to maintain an armed militia of 2000 men to guard against Việt Minh infiltration.

       In December 1951 the Việt Minh assaulted the village and captured it with suspicious ease.  Though French paratroops arrived to repel them, the guerrillas escaped with a large cache of weapons.  Grahame Greene reported the battle for Life magazine, observing it from the bell tower of the cathedral.  He later wrote it up again in his novel The Quiet American. 

subsidiary church in the Phát Diêm compound

       With the end of the war and the division of the country in 1954, French missionaries spread the word that the Blessed Virgin was moving south and persuaded the district’s Catholics to do the same.  The cathedral, abandoned by its priests and congregation, shut down.  In August 1972 an American bombing raid destroyed its western wall, two former convents and a school. Over time, local residents painstakingly repaired everything, such that no traces of the bombing remain.

       Nowadays, with a more relaxed policy on religious expression, Phãt Diệm Cathedral is active again.  In fact, all the churches in the district are thriving and fill with devotees every Sunday service.  But for the throngs of non-Catholic Vietnamese tourists who come to admire it, it’s not so much a religious edifice that makes the impression, but the fact that here is one foreign institution—a church—that reflects the dominance of native Vietnamese style over the European.

covered bridge in Kim Sơn

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Before the Dragon Rose: Vietnam’s Ancient Capitals

                                                      by Jim Goodman

life in ancient Văn Lang, the first Vietnamese state

       Founded in 1010, Hanoi is the oldest capital city in East Asia.  But it was not the country’s first.  It was the third capital since Vietnam recovered its independence in 938, after more than a thousand years of Chinese rule.  Before that there were two capitals, the one the Chinese conquered and the earliest one, the capital of the first Vietnamese state 2500 years ago.  It lay in the foothills bordering the Red River Delta plain, northwest of Hanoi, but no one knows exactly where it was.  No trace of it has survived; not even its name.

An Dương with his crossbow

       We do know the name of the state it served, however.  It was called Văn Lang, ruled by a succession of semi-legendary monarchs known as the Hùng kings, the first of whom is supposed to have taken power in the late 7^th century BCE., at the dawn of the Bronze Age.  Vietnamese historians have identified 18 kings in the Hùng Dynasty, which lasted about four and a half centuries.  They were the first to establish authority beyond their immediate vicinity, amalgamating disparate peoples living in small, autonomous units into a state with a common identity.

       Văn Lang was the hub of the Bronze Age Đông Sơn Culture, the originator of the bronze drum cult, influencing places beyond its borders, especially southern China, northern Thailand and eastern Burma.  Văn Lang artisans used bronze to make drums, weapons, farm tools, utensils, votive objects and funeral offerings. In tombs of the ruling class of those times excavation has revealed that many fine bronze artifacts were interred with the corpse.

       Đông Sơn relics have survived to confirm the state’s existence and high level of achievement.  But little else has.  The Hùng Kings’ tombs have never been found.  No ruined buildings from that era exist.  Văn Lang had no writing system, so records were not kept.  Yet researchers have identified a tract of hilly land in Phú Tho province as the probable site of Văn Lang’s capital.  Today’s Vietnamese revere the Hùng Kings’ era as the birth of their nationality.  Every year the government sponsors a festival here, held for several days in the third lunar month, attracting tens of thousands.   

Cổ Loa today

       Unlike its origin, Văn Lang’s demise is better known. The state fell to an invader from a mountain kingdom to the north in the 3^rd century BCE.  He took the royal name An Dương and established a capital and citadel at Cổ Loa, a little north of present-day Hanoi and at that time on the Red River.  Cổ Loa means ‘snail’ and refers to the series of concentric walls, like a snail shell, built to protect the city.  An Dương called the new realm Âu Lạc, combining the name of his own mountain state Âu Việt with the ancient name for the Red River Delta lands—Lạc Việt

Cổ Loa crossbow reconstruction in a Hanoi museum

       Local culture did not experience any disruption in its development.  In fact, An Dương even paid a visit to the former capital and, at a spot known today as the Swearing Stone, promised to venerate the souls of the departed Hùng kings and preserve the kingdom.  The only real novelty about the establishment of his rule was that it was the first time the local people had been beaten by a foe from the north.  Previous invasions they had always repulsed.  An Dương’s success foreshadowed what was to become a permanent potential danger in centuries to come.

village elders at the Cổ Loa festival

       Myth embellishes history in the story of Cổ Loa’s rise and fall.  When An Dương began building the city, every night whatever was built during the day was mysteriously dismantled.  The culprits turned out to be the spirits of the land, acting on behalf of the sons of the dispossessed former king.  Their leader was a thousand-year-old white chicken, residing on Tam Đào Mountain, northwest of Cổ Loa.  The new king An Dương was at a loss how to deal with these spirits.

       Suddenly a golden turtle appeared on the scene, fought and defeated the white chicken, and remained at Cổ Loa until the citadel was completed.  Upon departure he gave the king one of his claws to be used as a crossbow trigger.  The power of this would insure An Dương defeated any potential foe, for with this magic trigger the crossbow could fire one shot that would multiply into a thousand bolts.  

in the procession at Cổ Loa's festival

       All went fine for Âu Lạc for about a generation.  But then political changes to the north threatened the state.  The Qin Dynasty, whose expansion to the south had prompted An Dương to move south and seize Văn Lang, fell and the Han Dynasty took over.  But it did not assert control over the southern parts, which reverted to their pre-Qin Dynasty independence.  One of these states was Nan Yue in southeast China, and its ruler Zhao Tou, shortly after being confirmed as king by the Han Court in 196 BCE, decided to invade Âu Lạc.

        An Dương’s supernatural crossbow kept Zhao Tou’s forces from taking Cổ Loa and the attack stalled.  Another strategy was necessary. Zhao Tou called a truce and sent his son Trọng Thủy to An Dương’s court.  The young man made a favorable impression, won the heart of Princess Mỵ Châu and married her.  After time passed he persuaded her to let him gain access to the armory.  There he secretly stole the turtle claw crossbow trigger and then made up an excuse to visit his father’s camp.  Feeling qualms about his departure, Mỵ Châu showed him her mantle, padded with goose-down, and told him that if, in his absence, she should have to leave Cổ Loa, she would strew feathers from the mantle on the trail so that he could find her. 

Mỵ Châu's tomb at Tết

       Knowing the magic crossbow was now useless,  Zhao Tou renewed hostilities and soon took the citadel.  An Dương fled on horseback to the sea, the princess riding pillion.  When An Dương reached his destination the local genie informed him that the cause of his misfortune was right behind him.  Realizing it was his own daughter who betrayed him, he beheaded her and then flung himself into the sea.    Today, at the đình in Cổ Loa Historical Complex, an altar to the princess stands in the rear of the building.  Here supposedly is interred the headless corpse of Mỵ Châu and oddly enough, during Cổ Loa’s annual festival, shortly after Tết, Vietnamese lay offerings here.

       Back at Cổ Loa, after Zhao Tou captured the citadel, Trọng Thủy went searching for his wife Mỵ Châu.  He soon discovered the trail she had marked out with goose-down feathers during her escape.  When he came to the end of it he discovered her headless corpse.  He returned with it to Cổ Loa, had it buried properly and then killed himself.  Vietnamese have mixed feelings about Mỵ Châu, for if on the one hand she betrayed her father, on the other hand she was loyal to her husband.

Ngô Quyền

       Zhao Tou maintained Nan Yue’s independence until his death in 136 BCE, but the kingdom eventually fell to the Chinese 25 years later.  That was the end of any kind of Vietnamese independence, a period that would last over a thousand years and have a permanent impact on Vietnamese society and culture.  But the long occupation never extinguished the Vietnamese desire to run their own affairs.        Chinese control of northern Vietnam depended on the strength of its ruling dynasty.  When the state was strong, so was the administration.  When it weakened, fell victim to power struggles and such, Vietnamese revolted and at times briefly achieved autonomy again.   The Chinese established administrative centers, first in Long Biên, across the Red River from Hanoi, and later at Long Đỗ, on the site that is today Hanoi, where they built the Đai La citadel in the 9^th century.

       Taking advantage of the continuing chaos in China following the fall of the Tang Dynasty, in 938 CE Ngô Quyền led native forces to expel the Chinese from the garrison at Đai La.  Counter-attacking, the Chinese sent a large naval force into Hạ Long Bay, intending to sail up the Red River to Đai La and suppress the revolt.  To stop them Ngô Quyền ordered his men to plant sharpened stakes in the bed of the Bạch Đằng River, the main tributary here to the Red River. The stakes were invisible at high tide. 

battle on the Bạch Đằng RIver, 938

       The invading fleet sailed in at high tide.  At a bend in the river, the Vietnamese came out in small boats to engage the enemy and delay them until the tide lowered.  With that, the Chinese fleet found itself impaled on the stakes and immobilized.  The Vietnamese in their small boats then advanced, burnt the ships and destroyed the fleet.  With that victory the Vietnamese finally won back their independence.

       To re-establish the new nation’s link with its past, Ngô Quyền made Cổ Loa the capital.  The Red River had changed course by then and the city was no longer next to it.  Whether he rebuilt the same kind of citadel is unknown.  Unfortunately, after five years Ngô Quyền died.  Since he did not establish a successor, for twenty-four years twelve clans fought it out.  The winner, Đinh Bộ Lĩnh, moved the capital to his hometown Hoa Lư, in today’s Ninh Bình province. 

Đinh Bộ Lĩnh

       Cổ Loa gradually became a ghost city and its buildings disappeared.  A thousand years later it was resurrected, not as a city, but as a reconstruction.  It did not include rebuilding the ‘snail’ walls of ancient times, but did include a temple to An Dương, a statue of him with the famous crossbow and a temple to the hapless Mỵ Châu.  An annual festival began, starting the 6^th day of the first lunar month with a spectacular procession of men and women in ceremonial costumes, flags, ancient weapons and a miniature royal court.  The twelve villages belonging to Cổ Loa district organize the events, which also feature a great range of traditional games, contests, dramatic shows and fireworks.  The huge attendance at this event, particularly the first day, testifies to the continuing relevance of Cổ Loa in the national psyche.

       But that’s also true for Hoa Lư.  The festival there, honoring its two famous kings, held the same time as the one for the Hùng Kings, also draws thousands.  Temples venerating Đinh Bộ Lĩnh and Lê Hoàn lie on the far side of Hoa Lư and, except for Đinh Bộ Lĩnh’s tomb on a hill above the temples, are virtually all that is left of its ancient vestiges     The town today lies in the middle of surrounding hills, obviously easier back then to defend than Cổ Loa.  It was a hundred kilometers away from the old capital’s intrigues and a place where Đinh Bộ Lĩnh could count on local loyalty.  He ruled for eleven years until he and his son were assassinated in 979. 

contemporary Hoa Lư

      A child was next in line and the Chinese saw this as an opportunity to recapture Vietnam.  To meet this emergency the Hoa Lư Court deposed the boy and selected Lê Hoàn, the military commander, as the new king.  He stopped the Chinese invasion by employing the same trick used by Ngô Quyền:  planting sharpened stakes in the Bặch Đằng River to impale the Chinese ships.

       Lê Hoàn died in 1005 but left no heir.  A succession struggle broke out and after four years the winner was Lý Công Uẳn, commander of the palace guard, an orphan raised in a Buddhist temple. Buddhist influence at the Hoa Lư court had grown in the last years of Lê Hoàn’s reign and among the changes they advised the new king was to move the capital closer to the original Buddhist heartland, back to the old Chinese administrative center at Đai La.  Since its loss of status in 938 it had reverted to a village at more or less subsistence level.  But it still had an ideal location, with good water access to all parts of the delta as well as the sea. 

gateway to historic Hoa Lư

Lý Thái Tổ, founder of Hanoi

       The founder of the new Lý Dynasty, from then on known as Lý Thái Tổ, agreed.  The country seemed safe from any Chinese invasion and remote, mountainous Hoa Lư was far from the major areas of population and trade.  In 1010 he decided to take a trip to old Đại La and see for himself whether it would make a suitable site for a new national capital.  When the king’s boat arrived at the site of the ruined citadel, a dragon allegedly rose into the sky.  Taking that as a good omen, Lý Thái Tổ decided to stay and build a new capital city here.  He called it Thăng Long, Rising Dragon, the ancient city that eventually became Hanoi. Over a thousand years later, it’s still the capital of Vietnam.

at the annual Cổ Loa festival

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      Hoa Lư is one of the stops on Delta Tours Vietnam's journey through the country.