Weekend, return to Duong Lam ancient village to "live slowly", leisurely on the sloping brick-paved roads

Behind the gate of Mong Phu village, Duong Lam, a simple and familiar Doai village opens up with bamboo stalls selling rustic food, Lam tea, guava leaf tea, peanut candy... becoming an ideal place to rest after a hard week of work...

About 45km from the center of Hanoi , Duong Lam is one of the ancient villages with a long history. The village consists of 5 hamlets: Mong Phu, Cam Thinh, Dong Sang, Doai Giap and Cam Lam with a natural land area of ​​about 800.25 hectares and a population of more than 8,000 people.

Duong Lam is known by affectionate names such as ancient Vietnamese village, Duong Lam laterite ancient village or the land of "one class, two kings".

Through the ups and downs of time, Duong Lam ancient village still retains intact the unique cultural beauty of the agricultural lifestyle and the soul of the ancient villagers, along with a system of historical relics that have been ranked and many intangible heritages and documentary heritages that demonstrate the depth of the locality.

Currently, Duong Lam has 20 ranked relics, including 8 national relics, 12 city-level relics, nearly 100 ancient houses over 100 years old, nearly 1,000 traditional houses in the Northern countryside style and gates and alleys with unique architectural and artistic values ​​intact.

Duong Lam is considered a “museum of agricultural lifestyle”, not only because of the landscape space of an ancient village with banyan trees, wells, communal house yards, ancient roofs, laterite walls… but also because in Duong Lam, the purely agricultural lifestyle still exists clearly.

Besides rice and vegetable growing, people here also preserve a lot of folk knowledge in side jobs such as: Making Lam tea, Doi candy, peanut candy, sesame candy, Banh Duc, Green tea cake, sticky rice sauce...

Just entering the gate of the 300-year-old house of Mr. Ha Huu The's family (Sui hamlet, Mong Phu village, Duong Lam commune), the aroma of soy sauce jars spread throughout the space. With only ingredients made by Vietnamese farmers such as yellow sticky rice, soybeans, green beans, mold, bean water, earthenware jars... can make the famous soy sauce of Doai - a specialty that contributes to promoting tourism , an indispensable hometown gift for every tourist when coming here.

Also in this ancient house are peanut cakes eaten with Duong Lam soy sauce, which are produced and consumed by tourists.

The traditional dishes of the ancient village are not only simple hometown gifts when visiting the Doai region, but these products also become a source of enrichment, a great potential for tourism in the Duong Lam land today.

What is special about Duong Lam is that the buildings from houses, walls to wells, gates... are mostly made of laterite and are still quite intact to this day despite being stained with the sediments of time.

The gates bearing the marks of time still exist in Duong Lam.

Following the path in the village, visitors will see the sophistication and meticulousness of previous generations, expressed through the slanted brick roads, the ancient wooden gates decorated with trellises of morning glory and vibrant vines. In the harvest season, the village roads smell of straw, the large yards are dyed yellow by rice and corn...

In Mong Phu, each well bears the name of the hamlet. The wells all have very clean water for daily use. However, nowadays, people have their own clean water system, do not use water from the communal wells and they are still kept intact.

Not only is it a village that preserves unique ancient architecture, coming to Duong Lam, you also have the opportunity to enjoy famous specialties such as grilled chicken, braised fish, pickled eggplant, water spinach, crab soup...

The first time she came to Duong Lam with her mother, Ha Bao Han, 16 years old, a student at Ly Thai To High School, Hanoi, was very happy and loved this ancient village. Ha Bao Han experienced drawing on the ancient tile roof at Doai Creative the image of a girl wearing a yếm dress sitting by a lotus pond - a very familiar image of Vietnamese women in the past.

Coming to Duong Lam, tourists can visit many places that still carry strong traditions such as Mong Phu Village Gate, Mong Phu Village Communal House, Giang Van Minh Temple... There are also many ancient wells here. Like communal houses, wells are considered the soul of many Vietnamese villages.

Duong Lam currently chooses the direction of developing community tourism with sustainable factors and is increasingly proving that this is an effective method of tourism development, not only bringing many economic benefits but also contributing to preserving and promoting the unique cultural values ​​of the locality.

Duong Lam ancient village is suitable to visit at any time of the year. However, if you want to see all the beauty of the ancient Vietnamese countryside, you should choose to go during the rice harvest season around May and June or the festival season in the first lunar month every year.

And with the advantage of a countryside with rich heritage values ​​and a dense system of relics, a tourist destination known to many tourists, along with rustic dishes and the simplicity of the people, Duong Lam is not only a cultural space with value in terms of architecture, history, customs, habits... but also a suitable place for "slow living" tourism, temporarily leaving the city every weekend.

Source: https://baoquocte.vn/cuoi-tuan-ve-lang-co-duong-lam-song-cham-nhon-nho-tren-nhung-con-duong-lat-gach-nghieng-308104.html