Situated in the north Tu Liem district, about 10km from downtown Hanoi, Dong Ngac is well-known for its the well-preserved traces of its past, historical and cultural values: communal house, many hundreds-of-year-old houses and ancestral worshipping houses. The village is renowned for its large-scale communal house, built in 1653 to worship three genies, including Thien Than, Dia Than and Nhan Than. This is the solemn place in the village which takes place important events and displays a wide range of collection of ancient relics dating back hundreds of years including a set of ancient paintings from the Le Dynasty (1427 – 1788) depicting bumper harvests and the peaceful, prosperous life of people and eight paintings praising the vocations of fishery, forestry, fabric weaving, husbandry, teaching, farming, handicraft and 20 doctoral steles of the villagers.
Moreover, tourists also can visit the ancestral house which was built to honor a senior official in Le-Trinh era Do The Giai. Most ancestral houses have parallel sentences written in Chinese characters, showing that elders in the village continually remind the younger generation of the importance of study and acquiring further knowledge. In old gates of the village, also see many engravings.
The ancient village of Dong Ngac is one of few villages which have still kept intact the cultural features and old historical architecture despite the pace of urbanization. Traditional and cultural values still retained in the old bricks on the narrow paths around the village, stones in the pagoda.
There is no greater pleasure than walking into a completely different space, which is quiet, peaceful and quaint, escape from the bustle and hustle of the city, and discover Vietnamese unique values.
