In northern Vietnam near Ninh Binh is Hoa Lu, the ancient imperial city of the second Viet Empire Đại Cồ Việt. Hoa Lu was founded in the Dinh – dynasty by Đinh Bộ Lĩnh, the first Vietnamese emperor. After all, Hoa Lu was already 968 to 1009 the spiritual, cultural and political center of an early advanced civilization. Several quite well preserved temple complexes as well as buildings of education and intellectual creative activities still testify to the high level of the state’s development in this period.
Setting: The temple complex Dinh Thin Hoang in Hoa Lu
Visiting Hoa Lu is a change from enjoying the exciting natural environment of Ninh Binh, which is mainly characterized by towering limestone cones and ditches and canals flowing between them. In Hoa Lu, people have left the traces of their creative work and thus their culture more than 1000 years ago.
The temple Dinh Thin Hoang is divided into several courtyards, through which one approaches the central temple building. This is virtually a scaled-down version of the large complex of the Van Mieu “Temple of Literature” in Hanoi, which, however, was not built until 1070. The front courtyards are shaded and pleasant by trees and shrubs, water pools in the first courtyard provide additional freshness.
In the fifth courtyard of Hoa Lu, in front of the temple building, there is a national shrine of Vietnamese history – a dragon bed. This is a stone pedestal with a cover plate, which is designed with dragon reliefs. On both sides, raised dragon heads guard the dragon’s bed.
In the time loop at the dragon bed – a baby dragon appears
In the rather quiet, uncrowded Hoa Lu complex, with its buildings of Far Eastern design, one can already get into a mood reminiscent of ancient legends of dragons, monks and vanished empires. It would not cause too much astonishment if suddenly courtly scribes, Buddhist monks, Chinese merchants or even a flying dragon would appear. In other words – one is transported back in a time loop by 1000 years to the Dinh dynasty at the court of Hoa Lu.
And there it happened: I stood in front of the building at the dragon bed and looked back through the gateway of the courts of Dinh Thin Hoang. There I perceived a movement on the left at the base of the dragon bed. When I looked closer, I discovered a baby dragon just leaving the gap under the lid of the dragon bed. Quick-witted, I immediately started the film mode on my camera and crouched down. So to speak at eye level with the little dragon.
A couple of Vietnamese and a few Western tourists walked by, oblivious to this special performance. The small dragon looked sometimes here, sometimes there, turned around and ran lambently a few steps on the base of the dragon bed. He probably noticed me and was a bit unsettled, but not so frightened that he would have immediately taken flight. Would be even nicer, a dragon, which runs away from a biped! Rather, the baby dragon grinned at me happily and winked at me “You’re the first to discover me today…”.
Then the little dragon turned around once more, stuck his tongue out at me in farewell, and disappeared back into the dark crevices (or folds?) of the dragon’s bed.
Luck had it – no fire spat!
During my first presentation of the videoclip of the baby dragon at the dragon bed, the question came up why the baby dragon didn’t spit fire. Maybe my luck that the dragon babies are not yet allowed to spit fire! Such a hot love would be then nevertheless somewhat too much for me. In general, the little dragons learn to breathe fire probably only at the youthful age of 300 to 500 years…
Hoa Lu was for me also otherwise absolutely worth a visit. Besides the above-mentioned associations with imaginative fairy tales and legends, for which such somewhat remote sites of antiquity provide the tranquil backdrop, I always find it amazing how developed mankind was in different regions of this earth hundreds or thousands of years ago and what craftsmanship and artistic achievements the creators could already produce in those times.
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