Son Dong is a wood-carving village in Hoai Duc, on the western edge of Hanoi, that makes Buddhist statues, altars and carved panels for pagodas and family shrines across northern Vietnam. It lies close to the road to Duong Lam and Thay Pagoda. Workshops carve and lacquer statues in open yards, and a short stop […]
Author Archives: duonglamancientvillage
The Thay Pagoda festival is held in the third lunar month, with the main days traditionally from the 5th to the 7th, usually falling in April. It honours the monk Tu Dao Hanh with ceremonies, music, games and water puppet shows on the pavilion in Long Tri pond. Outside the festival, the pavilion is there […]
Thay Pagoda is an ancient Buddhist pagoda at the foot of Sai Son mountain in Quoc Oai, about 25 to 30 km west of Hanoi and around 27 km from Duong Lam. It is linked to the monk Tu Dao Hanh, who by legend began water puppetry here, and it faces Long Tri pond, where […]
The best things to buy in Duong Lam are edible: che lam, peanut candy, banh gai and, if you have room, a bottle of home-made soy sauce. Families sell them from their houses, usually for a few tens of thousands of dong a packet. There is no souvenir street, and mass-produced trinkets on a few […]
Cooking lunch in Duong Lam means joining a village family in their own kitchen for about two hours: rolling spring rolls, helping with a pork dish and greens, then eating together at their table in an old house. It is a home kitchen, not a cooking school. Expect warmth and good food rather than recipe […]
Duong Lam is known for country cooking rather than restaurants: Mia chicken, a local breed with firm meat, roast pork with crackling skin, rice with the village’s own soy sauce, and sweets such as che lam, peanut candy and banh gai. The best place to eat is at a family table in an old house, […]
Che lam is Duong Lam’s best-known sweet: a firm, chewy slab of toasted sticky rice flour bound with molasses or sugar, flavoured with fresh ginger and studded with whole roasted peanuts, then cut into bars and dusted with rice flour. Families in the village still make it by hand, and it is served with green […]
A few families in Duong Lam run homestays, usually a room or a shared sleeping space in or beside an old house, with dinner and breakfast cooked by the family. It is simple, quiet and early to bed. It suits travellers who want the village after the day visitors leave and at dawn, when the […]
Duong Lam photographs best in low sun: from about 7am to 9:30am and after 3:30pm the laterite turns warm rust and every pit in the stone shows. At midday the walls go flat and grey. The strongest pictures are close-up and human: a lane closed by walls, jars in a courtyard, hands making che lam. […]
The best route through Duong Lam starts at the Mong Phu gate, goes to the communal house and well, winds through the laterite lanes to one or two old houses, then on to Mia Pagoda, and ends at the shrines of Phung Hung and Ngo Quyen. On foot it is about three kilometres and takes […]