Visitors flock to Quan The Am Festival in Da Nang

About 70,000 visitors attended the Quan The Am (Avalokitecvara) Boddhisattva Festival that took place in the central city of Da Nang from March 28-30.
The annual Buddhist event is regarded as one of the most special tourism festivals in Vietnam. It is also a community cultural event, which helps restore and promote the cultural identity of the Vietnamese people.
The festival consisted of two parts, religious rituals and festive events.
The religious part included a ceremony to pray for peaceful country and prosperous people.
Festive events, including exhibitions of paintings, photos and calligraphy, tea culture, folk singing, traditional boat-racing and human chess, were organised as a warm up to the main festival.
The highlight of the event was the exhibition of King-monk Tran Nhan Tong (1258-1308) statue. This is the biggest jade statue in Vietnam which is made from a 4.5-tonne jade block. It was brought from the Vinh Nghiem Pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City.