West Lake — Attraction in Hà Nội

Tran Quoc at West Lake

At the base of West Lake in Tay Ho, there is a pagoda that been around an extremely long time. Greater than 1500 years! Its very unique in a city full of pagodas for not only it’s age, but traditions and it’s prized gift, now grown larger than most houses.

On the Southern end of West Lake, there’s quite a lot of open spaces for people to walk, fish, sit under the trees and whatever occurs to anyone to do in a park. Locals use it in myriad ways and in mornings and evenings, its loaded with people exercising, many passing through on a circuit around the lake jogging or riding. Its very popular. Off to the left as you pass north, theres a walkway leading to a gate and wall across a land bridge to an almost-islet just a dozen meters or so from the main land. Trees and potted plants are the main decor, though not much is required sitting between the lake and the parks. Still, go inside the gates and you find some pretty incredible manmade art as well. The Lotus Tower you’ll see before you get in as it is as tall as a 4 story building at the least. It has the decor and style of local pagodas, but stacked one atop the other into the sky. Many stop here to give respect in the customary ways. Art in pagodas that I’ve seen seems to most prefer a combining of the natural with grafting, carving, masonry and even fish. Bonzai-like creations is how I would describe many as they don’t practice the extremes of full bonzai, but lead far in this direction while keeping the tree as a player in the song rather than the song itself. I’m not sure how unique this is to Vietnam, but they certainly do it well. Across from the tower towards the pagoda building is a particularly beautiful sort of island of rock in a fountain topped with such a well manicured tree. Over to the left is an old gazebo of sorts seemingly protecting an old pillar covered in Classic Chinese characters. Nearby, on the wall, were many colorful modern pictures with texts in English with various karmic tradeoffs listed in a way easily understood by the school children whose groups come every year and the culture-shocked, but curious. I wondered if the nearby pillar essentially said the same things, but people who understand Classical Chinese are probably rare in China much less here. There is a pic in the pic set if any reading can read Classical and fell like posting. 🙂 We then round the classic pagoda structure towards the rear. They’ve an entrance there for the burning of incense and offerings that stands open before the Bodhi Tree donated to Vietnam in 1959 by the Indian Prime Minister as a clipping of the Boyd Gaya, the tree said to have been the one Buddha attained enlightenment under. Over 60 years later, it is quite huge, beautiful and healthy. Leaving, we stop for a “coconut-cream"(?), “ice-cream” made from coconut milk. There’s a locally famous spot across the street that often blocks traffic with it’s customers. Clearly doing well. The “vanil” was good and others seemed to like their’s. After the walking about it put a nice cool end on.

#Kenny_barks #crossingVietnamTour #Crossing_vietnam #tran_quoc #Hanoi #Westlake #Tay_Ho #Bodhi_Tree...

West Lake (Vietnamese: Hồ Tây) is the biggest freshwater lake of Hanoi, Vietnam, located northwest of the city center. With a shore length of 17 kilometres (11 mi) and 500 hectares (5.0 km2) in area, this is the largest lake of the capital and a popular place for recreation with many surrounding gardens, hotels and villas. A small part of West Lake is divided by Thanh Niên road to form Trúc Bạch Lake. Most of the lake is located within Tây Hồ District, named after the lake. West Lake was created from a curved part of Red River and appeared in several Vietnamese legends. One legend suggests that West Lake was shaped after the battle between Lạc Long Quân and a hồ tinh (nine-tailed fox), and that's why the lake was once called "Fox Corpse Swamp" (Đầm Xác Cáo). Another folk story claimed that original name of the lake was "Golden Buffalo Lake" (Hồ Trâu Vàng, or Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary: Hồ Kim Ngưu) because it was formed from struggle of a buffalo after the disappearance of her calf. In the 11th century, the lake was named "Foggy Lake" (Hán Việt: Hồ Dâm Đàm) due to its misty condition. Ultimately its name was changed to "West Lake" in 1573 to avoid the given name of Emperor Lê Thế Tông, which was Duy Đàm. West Lake is bordered by many significant places in the history of Hanoi and Vietnam. Trấn Quốc Pagoda, an ancient Buddhist temple in Vietnam,[1] was built in the 6th century by Emperor Lý Nam Đế and is located on a small island in the middle of the lake. Near Trấn Quốc Pagoda is Quán Thánh Temple, one of the Four Sacred Temples of ancient Hanoi (Vietnamese: Thăng Long Tứ Trấn). Chu Văn An High School, one of the oldest high schools in Vietnam, is also located close...

the lake is big, clean and nicely maintained lake. located a bit away from the city. has nice walkways beside it. u gonna like it, especially in the afternoon and evening. has a cool pagoda and some nice colorful places around it. i spent a nice evening here and liked the entire place. Just in case you'd love to get some expats into the life of yours here is the house of yours. Yes on weekends a few Vietnamese can be found here to go walking and exercise but usually its full of countless expats. The water isn't actually neat and so even though you may see several Vietnam folks swimming I am going to have a pass on it. It is excellent in the views of its as well as has a few of decent restaurants nearby. However not the prettiest, for us that title goes to Hoan kiem Lake (see review), west lake is huge about 17k’s of shore line. The attraction for us was visiting Quan Thanh Temple and Tran Quoc Pagoda. The pagoda in quite beautiful with the lake as a back drop.

note: There are a few opportunists vendors walking around selling all kinds of things, and can get pushy, especially, the fruit yoke/shoulder pole carriers, some of the tactics to get you to buy are on the...