Sunday, August 15, 2010

Nha Trang's Sand Art

She was sitting under a shade at a corner at the Po Nagar Tower site. My curiousity dragged me to see what she was doing closer. She had glass tumblers filled with different colored sands, arranged on a tray. One colored sand in one glass tumbler. A small box made of glass was put on a rotatable round platform. But she let the top of the box open.

a sketch on each of vertical surface

one colored sand  in one tumbler

Soon, I realized that she was about to make a sand art. I heard about this on TV before, but it was for the very first time I saw somebody was actually making it right before my eyes.

filling in the glass box with colored sands

a rotatable platform was very helpful

She made a sketch on the vertical surface of the glass box by a pen. One sketch on one vertical side. On the glass box, I saw two different sketches on it's 2 vertical sides. Next step was filling in the glass box by colored sands by a tool, similar to very small spoons. She managed to fill different colored sands by using the sketch as a guide. Occasionally, she used a tiny stick to ensure that the surface of the sands follows the sketch lines.


ensuring the sand surface follow the sketch lines

She kept doing that until the box was fully filled by the colored sands. She carefull checked the content of the box to ensure that she didn't leave some empty space in the glass box. Then she covered the top of the box by a small plan glass glued by silicone glue.

voila!


This kind of art started in Petra of Jordan in 1920's or earlier. They packed multi-colored sands in bottles and sold it to tourists as souvenirs. No one recalls precisely who started it or when (if you're interested in more details, click here).

Saturday, August 7, 2010

A Hindu footprint in Vietnam

I was blessed with opportunities to travel to a lot of places in Vietnam. I saw a lot of Buddhist / Confucianism temples all over the country. But when I saw this ancient Cham temple, I felt being alienated from Vietnam cultures I got used to. The temple was Tháp Bà Po Nagar (the Po Nagar Tower)


I got impression that I must be in Cambodia or Laos. Even the red bricks material reminded me to Bali. But hey..., that was the hint!. The common thing here was the Hindu influence.

With currently over 50,000 followers, Hindu community is a minority among 84-million population in Vietnam. Most of them are Cham ethnicity.



The Po Nagar Tower was one of the most important Hindu temples in Vietnam beside My Son in Quang Nam and Po Klaung Garai (Poklongarai) in Phan Rang.




To visit the tower was easy. It was located by the Cái river, not far from Nha Trang downtown. Plenty of public buses went passing by the tower, or you could take the xe ôm (motorbike taxi).