As I'm sure I've explained before, Quy Nhon is far from the beaten tourist track (though it's grown noticeably more popular in the last year and a half since we arrived). But compared to the rest of Binh Dinh province, Quy Nhon is a veritable tourist magnet. Except for a couple of spots on the main bus routes, hardly anyone who's not Vietnamese ventures very far outside the city, including us.
This was going to have to change. And change it did. A couple weeks ago, a New Zealand volunteer living in Quy Nhon told us about an old Catholic seminary he had been to. He described for us the general part of the province it was in, but said it would be hard to find if you'd never been there before. Perfect. I did some digging online and Jason rounded up a few of our friends with motorbikes. We set out from Quy Nhon yesterday morning under delightfully cloudy skies with some vague directions clipped from a website (in Vietnamese) and a not-so-detailed map of the area.
As it was, we only had to backtrack once and we got far more than we were hoping for out of the whole deal. The seminary was great--quiet and peaceful, with stately old trees swaying in the breeze. It's been officially shut down by the powers-that-be since the early 1980s, but an elderly Vietnamese priest still lives there and cares for the place, and employs a husband and wife couple who help him out.
We've heard two different versions of the history of the place--one, that the seminary and church were built by the French in the early 1900s; another, that they were built by the Portuguese long before that. It's possible that both are true--the site could have been used by the Portuguese (perhaps even as early as the 1700s) and then re-built by the French later on. Either way, the grounds are well-kept and it's a wonderfully quiet place surrounded by rice fields and well-shaded by the trees. I asked the priest/caretaker if it was possible for people to come spend a night or two there (they certainly have enough rooms) and was told with a smile that sure it was possible so long as permission was granted by the authorities. Which, I'm guessing, means "No."
Either way, I'd like to go out again and spend the better part of a day with a Good Book and a journal. Seems to be a great spot for reflection and thinking.
Our journey wasn't over yet, though. As it turns out we were right out near the hometown of one of the friends who had come along with us. Following his lead we wound our way through more villages and rice paddies until we came to a Catholic cemetery that, according to our friend/guide, dates back four hundred years. The tombs were impressive and shaped like lotus flowers, turtle shells and other crazy, unidentifiable objects. One of the tombs even had stairs that descended underneath it--right down to the water table (which in that part of the country was only about five feet beneath us). We didn't venture down to see whether the tomb's occupant was hanging out down there or not.
From the cemetery it was just another couple of miles to an old Cham tower--the oldest of the 14 towers left standing in the province, apparently. The Cham were a people group from India who settled most of southern Vietnam a long, long time ago. They were eventually driven out by the Vietnamese coming down from the north, but not before they'd built themselves a bunch of brick towers all over the countryside. This tower dated from the 11th century, and was in quite good shape for being around 1000 years old. The Cham were remarkable for building things with bricks but no mortar. Somehow they fitted everything together so precisely that they didn't need the stuff.
From the tower we circled back around the lagoon behind Quy Nhon and hit the new highway which runs the length of the sandy, deserted "economic development zone" across the water from the city. We cruised along the wide, vacant stretch of asphalt and across the long bridge spanning the lagoon, back to the city and civilization. All told it was a tour I would have been happy to pay $30 or $40 for, which we got instead for the price of a couple liters of gasoline and lunch for our friends. Days like that make me happy to be here in Vietnam, happy to have friends willing to drag me around by motorbike for half a day, happy to be slowly unfolding the history and character of these people.
Rather than just posting a bunch of pictures, I thought a video would be in order to share a little more about this trip, so you can take a look at the link below. (Watch it in full screen for full effect, of course.)Binh Dinh Exploration from Steven Shetterly on Vimeo.
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