Zoë Sheng

Chinese-Canadian - 05-Feb-18 -

Perfume Pagoda, as it is better known to foreigners, is really popular with Vietnamese tourists in March and April when they have religious festivals. The rest of the year it is dead quiet. To get here you need to join a tour or hire a driver. The tours are cheap compared to the other attractions around Hanoi.

When you get there you will see a crappy wharf with tiny metal row boats. Surely this can't be it? Yes it is! Those metal boats are hard on your ass so bring something to pad your butt for the 45 min boat ride along the canal. The boats are also uncovered so if the sun is glaring down you better have a hat. You later have to take the same route back with the rower asking you for a tip. Tipping is a difficult subject but she basically just rowed and waited, and then rowed back. You pay for that in a ticket already...besides that they tell you the boat needs 6 people so you need to pay extra if you don't want to wait which in my opinion is a bit of scam already.

When you get to the temple area you will see many restaurants. Shortly afterwards you get to see a big temple complex. This is actually not the Perfume Pagoda even though you see it on many pictures online. It is not a bad temple although aside from the main gate there are generally just new buildings to see inside. I still suggest going through this area.

The next part gives you the choice of ascending on foot or taking the cable car. I thought I will go up and enjoy some scenery along the way - NO. The entire path up is riddled with shops that would normally sell you trinkets, coffee, food and soft drinks. As I was going in off-season 99% of these shops were closed and a few of these closed shops were doing renovations too = dust and wood shavings all over the path. Aside from that you cannot actually see any of the area around because the shops are lining along like a wall. Even if there is not a shop in the way the view will still be closed off with a metal sheet as if they did that on purpose. The path is also uneven and continuously ascending. Do yourself a favor and take the cable car!

So you finally made it up to the top and what do you see? A long staircase ascending into the mountain. Interesting and mystical. This is one of the highlights once again. I saw pictures online with massive amounts of people filling this small valley but in off-season you see maybe less than 10. There isn't much here aside from the tiny cave with religious statues. The shops before the descend had prayer items for sale. After you had a look around here, basically having a break, you go back all the way to the entrance of the mountain - hopefully by cable car. The return boat ride is still as hard as before.

Probably the worst sight on the Tentative list in Vietnam at the time of writing - although from a cultural point of view I wouldn't be surprised if it gets added to the WHS list.