Upper Temple of Lao Cai

On Hỏa Hiệu Hill, a temple looks straight down at a river. People there also call the hill Mai Lĩnh Mountain, and the river is the Nậm Thi. The hill stands in Lào Cai ward, in the city of Lào Cai. Across the water lies Hà Khẩu, in Yunnan, China. The temple is Đền Thượng, the Upper Temple. Not many temples in Vietnam stand so plainly on a border and also have so long a history.

It was built in the Lê dynasty, in the Chính Hòa reign period, roughly from 1680 to 1705. Its buildings follow the shape of the character Công. The temple honors Trần Quốc Tuấn, who is worshiped under his full title, Quốc công Tiết chế Hưng Đạo Đại Vương. He is the general whose name is tied to the three times that soldiers and ordinary people drove back the Mongol armies in the 13th century. They fought for the Trần dynasty, which ruled Vietnam from 1225 to 1400.

In 1996, Đền Thượng was ranked as a national historic and cultural monument. Inside the temple grounds there is also a banyan tree more than 300 years old. In 2012 it was recognized as a Vietnam Heritage Tree.

The temple's festival is a living heritage. Decision 3247 of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, dated September 16, 2016, recorded the Upper Temple Festival as a national intangible cultural heritage. In 2026, that recognition turns ten years old.

The festival is held every year and lasts three days, from the 13th to the 15th of the first lunar month. It opens with a procession of the deity, a ceremony of offerings by the community, and an opening ceremony. Then come cultural events, with representatives of many of the province's ethnic minority communities. There are folk games, traditional songs, dance and music, and food from the highlands. Tens of thousands of people come to it each year.

Đền Thượng has stood for more than 300 years. The wind still climbs from the Nậm Thi up Hỏa Hiệu Hill, as it always has. The banyan still gives its shade. And at the full moon of the first lunar month, people from all over the region come here again.