In the mountains of Vietnam, far away from both cities and roads lies a complex of Buddhist temples. One of them is in a cave in a mountain.

Getting to Perfume Pagoda requires a variety of transport types. From Hanoi it takes two hours to drive by car or bus. This is followed by a trip up the river – done in a small boat being rowed manually by a woman for an hour straight. At last it takes around 40 minutes to walk up to the most famous temple in the cave. The last part of the trip can be replaced by a cable car ride for a better view.

In February and the following two months a large festival takes place here, attracting 1.5 million people. Previous years have seen as many as 30 000 visitors in a single day. Now the situation is very different. There cannot be more than a few dozen people here. While we row upstream we pass something that looks like a tomb on the river bank. According to feng shui it will benefit your energy and spirit to be buried as close to the water as possible when you are born and raised in the mountains, and thus tomb stones are strewn all along the very edges of the river.

Arriving at the temple complex, we walk through something that looks like a queuing area. It is clearly made to handle loads of people, but now it is abandoned and quiet. Even though it will be flooded with people in two months time we get a feeling of being in an abandoned ghost town.

Our first stop is a pagoda named Giai Oan Pagoda where a munk walks around all by his lonesome clearing ash from the incense sticks. God knows (quite literally!) if this is what he does all day. He is also very adamant in ensuring that people don’t sit on the elephant statues outside the pagoda – You know, the ones that happen to be shaped like perfect chairs right where you take your shoes off to enter the pagoda…

The pagoda is decorated with gold and wood carvings on the inside and has numerous Buddha statues. It is quiet although a few people have arrived to pray. Surrounding the pagoda are a number of buildings, sculptures and monuments in addition to many smaller ponds with fish in them. The places looks worn down, but with a few strokes of paint this would look amazing.

However, this is not the most famous pagoda of the complex, that one is located 2 km further into the mountain. It is possible to pay 5 USD per person to take a cable car here, which in addition to being an easy way to get to the top also gives you a nice view of the area. However, we have seen forests from above before and saving 20 USD on two return tickets is nice on such a long trip as ours, so we decide to walk to the top. It takes around 35 minutes and the path is easy to navigate.

In Peru we experienced that the road to Machu Picchu is just as good, if not better, than the destination itself. This is by all means not the case here. The path is made out of cobblestone and features stone fences on the sides shaped in beautiful ways. Next to the path is a large green valley with an amazing view. The only problem is that all of this is covered by stalls selling tacky tourist souvenirs, broken sheds turned into piles of wood and metal and loads of trash. I don’t think we have ever seen a place with such good potential for a great tourist attraction ruined this much by local street vendors and a total lack of understanding for preservation of nature.

After 35 minutes we have finally walked to the top through the trash path and arrive at the pagoda’s entrance. The view from the top is amazing and there are no stalls, trash or other eyesores ruining the experience here. To get to the temple itself we have to descend on a long set of stone stairs and enter a cave. This could easily have been a scene from Indiana Jones.

The temple is not a building itself, but a collection of sculptures, candles and everything else that religious buildings usually feature.

The cave itself works as a roof for the pagoda and makes for a great sight in itself. From the opening it looks like you are standing inside the mouth of a dragon. The natural pilars inside the cave are supposed to bring luck and wealth if touched; they are completely smooth and worn down by millions of hands when we arrive.

Reminded by the fact that return tickets with a cable car costs the same as our food budget for two days we choose to walk down again, but we really do recommend others to spend the 5 USD extra each way. The view is way better from the sky than it is between the ugly stalls.

In the end we are rown down the river again to the bus and notice that a bridge we are crossing under has some rather special engravings that most Europeans would recognise. It is of corse a Buddhist symbol, but for us other associations comes to mind…

Perfume Pagoda is worth a visit, but be aware of the festival between February and April.  It is probably a special experience seing all the people at once here, but we doubt that you will see much more than people. November and December are very quiet months and you get the temples almost all to yourself.