Cycling in Hanoi - Part 3

We stopped at a village pagoda while some type of ritualistic ceremony was going on. We were allowed to take photos (without flash). We were definitely “strangers in these parts.” After leaving, I asked our guide the name of their religion. He called it Len Dong. So rather than giving you my impressions, here’s what Wiki says about it.

girl in yellow is the medium

 Lên đồng (literally "to mount the medium", or "going into trance"; alternately, hầu bóng ("receiving incarnations of the deities” or hầu đồng) is a ritual of spirit mediumship in connection with Đạo Mẫu, a Vietnamese mother goddess religion, in which followers become mediums for various deities. Sessions involve a number of artistic elements, such as music, singing, dance and the use of costumes. The invocation songs (Vietnamese: hát văn) used to induce a trance in mediums have been described as a "particularly noteworthy expression of the performing art of the Kinh people" the lên đồng ritual itself is considered to be an element of Vietnam's intangible cultural heritage.

assistants on either side of medium

another change of clothes

medium is covered

Also straight out of wiki:

Assistants will help the medium don different costumes to match the particular gods they are incarnating; for example, if a practitioner is acting as a medium for a god who takes the form of a general, he or she may wear a general's robes, and perform a dance incorporating swords or other weapons. A medium may incarnate several gods during one session, changing his or her costume and adapting his or her movements to each. Musicians—singers and instrumentalists—accompany the practitioner, and shift from one musical style to the next depending on which god is being incarnated. When the dance is finished, the audience is allowed to approach the still-possessed medium to make offerings, petition the deity being incarnated in exchange for favors, or to have their fortune told.

notice she is wielding a sword

 

offering us money and inviting us to come in

 They call it "an element of Vietnam's intangible cultural heritage." I call it creepy. 

neighbor selling us "cake"

Afterwards our guide took us to tour his “very humble home” (as he proudly referred to it several times) to have lunch. Lunch was a “cake” which he bought from a neighbor who was cooking it in her backyard. How bad could cake be, I asked myself? I’ll post a photo and let you decide. Due to time constraints, we took a cab back to our hotel from our guide’s house. All in all, it was a nice ride and we saw much more of Vietnam and its people than we could have either by walking or by car.

  

me with helmet hair and our guide in his home

here's our cake - what do you think?