Perfume Pagoda

This past weekend we took a day trip to the "Perfume Pagoda" which is about 2 hours from Hanoi. We traveled by boat again, but this time we were in groups of six. I just can't emphasize how nice it is to get out of Hanoi and float on a boat! It was a great ride, other than the one aggressive vendor. On the drive there we saw that it must be the high time of the harvest of rice! It's quite interesting how they go about harvesting, drying and reaping the harvest.  Here are a few pictures to show how they do it.
She cuts, he gathers...

 Running the rice through a machine to separate...

 Burning the remains...

 Drying....and what better place to do that than on the road that motorbikes, cars and trucks drive on!

 Turning the rice...

We got there around 11:30 and it took about 1.5 hrs on the boat to get to the mountain. It was a glorious site being in nature hearing the sounds of the paddles on the water.

We stopped and had lunch, and looked around at the vendors goods before we headed to the cable car for the trip up the mountain. It took about 15 minutes to get up the mountain by cable car and then it was a short hike to the Pagoda. It is a cave in the mountain with a large structure at the front and then an opening behind it. It looks a lot like an open mouth with tonsils!

 These little guys were for sale.....I assume to munch on!

 Gifts for the buddha...

 A stick bug....

 It is remarkable how this structure formed and all of the time it took. Its a sacred Buddhist Pagoda and there are alters and incense around the cave. I don't know what to think exactly of some of the offerings as its a lot of junk-food. We hiked down the mountain which took about 45 minutes. We had a peaceful, serene boat ride back to the dock as the sun got lower and lower.