Bo Da Pagoda

Bo Da sits on a hill above the Cau river and is unusual among northern pagodas in being enclosed not by brick but by walls of rammed earth mixed with broken tile and bamboo, built in the eighteenth century and still standing. Behind the halls is the stupa garden: around a hundred brick and stone tombs holding the ashes of generations of monks and nuns, densely packed in a walled enclosure, which is one of the largest such gardens in Vietnam. The pagoda also holds a set of woodblocks carved in the eighteenth century for Buddhist texts, some three thousand of them, recognised as a national treasure.

What you actually see

• Rammed earth walls - earth, tile and bamboo, from the eighteenth century.
• A stupa garden of about a hundred tombs - among the largest in Vietnam.
• Three thousand woodblocks - carved in the eighteenth century.
• A hill above the Cau river - the pagoda's setting.

When to go

Year round; the festival falls in the second lunar month. Half a day.

Honest expectations

The woodblocks are stored rather than displayed in full. Interpretation is in Vietnamese. The stupa garden is a burial place and is treated as one. Bac Giang is off the usual routes.

Nearby

Vinh Nghiem pagoda is east; Bac Ninh and its villages are south-west.