This is Trần dynasty country. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Trần kings ruled Đại Việt from here and from the delta, and they are best remembered for turning back the Mongol armies three times, in 1258, 1285 and 1288, under the general Trần Hưng Đạo. The Thái Miếu, an ancestral temple associated with the dynasty, belongs to this landscape of royal tombs and shrines in the hills near Đông Triều, in Quảng Ninh province, at the northern edge of the Red River delta.
The setting is soft and green: low wooded ridges, rice paddies, ponds with lotus, and village lanes shaded by banyan and bamboo. Not far east rises Yên Tử, the mountain where Trần Nhân Tông, after his reign, withdrew to found the Trúc Lâm school of Vietnamese Zen. The Chùa Lân and Bồ Đà pagodas on neighbouring rides belong to that Buddhist heritage. The air smells of incense, wet earth and burning rice straw, depending on the season.
Quảng Ninh is also coal country, and that colours the ride. Trucks thunder along the main roads, dust hangs over the junctions, and every few kilometres you pass a quarry, a washing plant or a mining town. Then you turn off onto a village road and suddenly everything is quiet. Surfaces are generally paved but patched, and scooters, bicycles, buffalo and chickens share the lane. Ride calmly, keep your speed low in villages, and give right of way to anything larger than you.
The nearest city of any size is Uông Bí, about twenty-five kilometres away, with about sixty thousand people, fuel stations and plenty of noodle shops. Smaller settlements nearer the temple will have tiny roadside stalls and petrol sold from bottles, which works in an emergency but is best avoided. The cooler months from October to March are most pleasant; summer is hot and humid with heavy downpours, and typhoons can disrupt the coast from July to September. Dress respectfully if you step inside the temple grounds.