Crowds gather at the Tay Thien festival (Source: VNA)
Vinh Phuc (VNA) – A ceremony was held in the northern province of Vinh Phuc to receive certificates recognising the Tay Thien site and the Binh Son Tower as special national relic sites.
The Tay Thien site locates in Dai Dinh commune, Tam Dao district, 75km northwest Hanoi. It spans 148 hectares on the Thach Ban Mountain within the Tam Dao range.
The site is known for its ancient religious buildings, such as pagodas, temples, as well as beautiful forests, streams, waterfalls and grottoes.
It is said to be a cradle of Vietnamese Buddhism, and also a place for worshiping Mother Lang Thi Tieu, who made great contributions to national defence, peace and agricultural development during the era of the Hung Kings.
The complex received the status of national relic site in 1991. It has become one of the key tourism sites of the province.
The 11-storey Binh Son Tower is located in Binh Son village, Tam Son town, Song Lo district. Built during the Ly – Tran dynasty from the 11th to the 13th century, it originally had 15 storeys but four upper storeys were destroyed with time. This is the highest terracotta brick tower left from the Tran era.
The structure has been repaired after the toll the continuous floods in the 1960s had taken on it.
Statistics compiled during the repair show 13,200 bricks were used to build the tower. The outside were covered by square tiles decorated by various patterns.-VNA
