The Whale Temple

April 20, 2009, 9:28 am
Filed under: vietnam

On my second day in Qui Nhon, my friend and I rented a moto and drove down the coastline about 25 km south of the city. Ivan had been in Qui Nhon for nearly two weeks already, visiting for the third time in a year in order to continue his research on the social and cultural impact of overseas Vietnamese remittances in Vietnam. We turned off on an unmarked dirt road towards the beach, and bumped along the sandy path until we hit a lone building on the beach.

It was a whale temple, and Ivan had discovered this particular one on his many moto rides up and down the coast. Every fishing village has a whale temple, to pay respects to the Whale God who is a protector of the seas and the men who fish for their livelihoods. Once a year, an entire fishing village celebrates and makes offerings at the whale temple. The rest of the year, the whale temple is quiet with a villager assigned to care for it.

The whale temple provided the necessary shade from an oppressively hot morning. We dipped in a sparkling blue-green ocean, the most beautiful I had ever seen in Vietnam. It was a long stretch of completely deserted beach – not a single food stand or guesthouse, and only the occasional fisherman setting out to sea in his basket boat.