Bach Ma National Park

Bach Ma National Park is located in central Vietnam (less than an hour drive from Hue city) and around 680 km from the country's capital Hanoi. The national park covers an area of 22,031 ha and was created in 1991 to protect the center of the last corridor of forest stretching from the South China Sea to the border with Lao PDR.

Bach Ma Mountain - Vietnam

Bach Ma Mount also has many limpid brooks and picturesque waterfalls. At the 16th kilometer on Cau Hai - Bach Ma road, turning left and walk for 20 to 30 minutes, tourists will also find 400m high, 20m wide Do Quyen waterfall which suddenly appears as if it were suspended in the sky... In the summer, rhododendron flowers are blooming on both sides of the fall like two huge flowery silk carpets. In the centre of the resort is Bac (Silver) waterfall, only 10m high and 40m wide and look like a spotless white curtain swayed by the wind.

More than half a century ago, the French recognized the beauty of Bach Ma and began to develop it. Within 5 years (1942-1946), 139 villas were continuously built under the foliage of old trees and by sheer cliffs.

The highest point in the park, Bach Ma Mountain, is 1450 m above sea level and only 18 km away from the coast. Visitors have been coming to Bach Ma since the 1930s, when the French Colonials built a hill resort here to escape the hot and humid plains during the summer months. The National Park has restored some of the villas built at that time, and is upgrading the services they offer

From the top of Bach Ma, people can view landscapes of Hai Van Pass, Tuy Van mount, Cau Hai lagoon with heaving fishing boats and even the shimmering electrical lights of Hue city at night as well as the huge and boundless Eastern Sea.

The rich flora and fauna also attract many tourists. Bach Ma National Park is home to 233 species of birds and 55 species of mammals, as well as extensive vegetation of more than 500 species. Thus, the park does not only offer beautiful landscapes, but it also allows for scientific research.

Fine Arts Museum - Hanoi Vietnam

The Fine Arts Museum in Hanoi is housed in a building that once served as the French Ministry of Information. The structure and form is very classical, yet with oriental touches to the roof and other details.

The collection within the museum's two wings ranges from ancient antiquities to contemporary art. The ground floor of the main wing houses the oldest artifacts. These include the sandstone sculptures of the Champa and Funan kingdoms. Among them is the elegantly carved Amitabha Buddha image, produced in 1057. Later works include a huge lacquered wood Boddhisattva sculpture with many arms, each of which once held a symbolic item, and dating from the sixteenth century.

In fact, I think one of the best reasons to visit the Fine Arts Museum is to see the evolution of lacquer as a fine art in Vietnam. As you proceed through the first floor of the museum, you'll see an increasing refinement of the use of lacquer in sculptures. Some works show kings and queens of Vietnam depicted as Buddhist deities. One of the largest and most impressive works is the "One Thousand Eye, One Thousand Arm Guan Yin". The Hindu styled sculpture carved in 1647 depicts the Chinese goddess with many arms on her body and backed by a large disk with what indeed looks like 1,000 hands carved into it.

The last rooms on the first floor contain lacquer Buddha images from the late eighteenth century. These are in several styles, with some showing extreme emaciation. Just outside these rooms is the stairway to the second floor.

 Fine Arts Museum - Hanoi Vietnam

The emphasis changes from sculpture to paintings on the second floor. In the early twentieth century, the works are very impressionist with oriental touches. Beginning in the late 1940s, the works begin to depict the heroic peasant, reflecting the growing interest in nationalism and the influence of communist ideology. Further rooms again display the development of lacquer in paintings. Lacquer is used in many ways in paintings. Sometimes, an image is etched into a thick lacquer panel. The etched area is then painted in with oils or other types of paint. In many other cases, the image is made up of many layers of color and lacquer, making an image that appears slightly three dimensional. Crushed eggshell is sometimes used to give a "cracked" finish to some paintings.

Once you've circled the second floor of the main building, you can move to the newer wing of the museum. An elevated walkway leads from the main building to the newer wing. There are some galleries lining the walkway selling art and souvenirs. The second floor of the new wing displays the costumes and decorative arts of Vietnam's various ethnic groups. The first floor contains Chinese styled water-colors.