Watch the reed-flag battle re-enactment at the Hoa Lu festival
Reed flags and human calligraphy
A three-day festival on the parade ground of the Hoa Lu ancient capital relic site, in the third lunar month, usually April, with the temple opening and a lantern-floating blessing a few days before the main programme.
Why it's unique
The Hoa Lu festival is national intangible heritage and it is built around two competitive village performances that exist nowhere else. The first, dien tich Co lau tap tran, re-enacts the boy Dinh Bo Linh drilling his childhood army with reed flags before he founded the first independent Vietnamese state here in 968. The second, hoi thi keo chu Thai Binh, has massed villagers walking formations that spell out the reign name with their bodies.
Both are specific to Truong Yen and the old capital, and both are competitions between village teams rather than displays put on for visitors. There is also a clever boat rowing contest and a wrestling championship, equally local. You are watching villages compete against each other on the ground where the events being re-enacted are said to have happened.
Before you go
The festival falls in the third lunar month, usually April, and runs about three days, with the temple opening and the lantern-floating blessing a few days earlier than the main programme.
The re-enactment and the character-pulling are competitions between village teams, and the villages rehearse for weeks beforehand, which is when to come if you want the thing without the crowd. On the main days the Dinh and Le temples are unusable for quiet visiting, so do the temples on another trip. Beds in the area go early for the festival weekend. It is full sun and no shade on the parade ground.