# 34: January Rain

Posted: April 29, 2009 
Filed under: Scenery
Tagged: travel, Yen Tu
Comments: Leave a comment

Description

It is not January, definitely not! But this cool wonderful weather reminds me of a very sweet feeling for my homeland (nostalgia, isn’t it?)

This place is somewhere 60km away from my grandfather’s house, called Yen Tu, located in Quang Ninh, one angle of the northern Vietnamese industrial triangle. The place is famous for its incredible view to the nature. In order to see the bamboos mountains and the pagodas built at the top (and along the way) on very high mountains, you have to climb up thousands of step. In the past, they said: “if you reach the top of this mountain 3 times, you will become a Buddha”. But nowadays, the built steps and….tram, so there’s no way you can become a Buddha anymore!!!

This place is also famous for its origin of a Vietnamese Buddhism created by King Tran Nhan Tong. The King left his family and his throne in 1299. The King became the first founder of “Truc Lam sect.”, known as a Buddhism of Vietnamese. Well, I’m not really good at history, just to give you a brief look!

I climbed up the mountain on a day the…tram closed. It took me 4 hours to climb up, then over 2 hours to climb down. Luckily the weather was quite cool, the higher you climb, the cooler it is, and the more beautiful you can see. I went there with my best friends, and they alternatively carried the camera for me (or I would have to give up climbing), and to admit, even the place is well known but that was the first time I visited it.

The person ahead is one of my friends with me on the trip. On the way, to encourage myself beyond those thousands steps, I kept telling her: "Promise me, that we will....see the top, ok?"

Love the mood for this

A pagoda located in the middle of the mountain, still half way to climb up

Waiting till the rain stops

Just take a break!

Ah, that's me, so innocent!!!

I tried to make them a couple, but... I failed

You see the clouds? You can imagine you HARD we climbed...

Ah, you see the steps???

What's special about it? Not two handsome guys, it is the tower far down, wow, we were really...high!

Finally, we reached the top, that's all at the top, but thousands of visitors come every year just for that little pagoda. A monk took this photo for us, probably!!