Dinh Co Long Hai Festival - Extremely unique water festival

While traveling to Vung Tau, you can immediately note this time in your travel guide so you don't miss this extremely solemn Dinh Co Long Hai Festival. Dinh Co Long Hai Festival is held on 3 days from February 10 to 12 of the lunar calendar every year, in Long Hai town, Long Dien district, Ba Ria - Vung Tau province.

Dinh Co Long Hai Festival is a procession by boat on the sea (water festival) with many attendees. Mother's Day has become a festival that attracts a large number of tourists from many other provinces and cities. Rituals during the festival include a praying ceremony at the main hall the night before. Outside, a flower festival takes place. The procession takes place on the morning of the 12th on dozens of splendidly decorated boats to pray for peace and calm, with shrimp and fish filling the compartments.

Before the main ceremony day, the 10th and 11th day of the second lunar month, the ceremony part of Dinh Co Long Hai Festival will include lantern festival nights on the sea. Parked on the beach are tens of thousands of boats decorated with colorful lanterns, heading towards Dinh Co.

From early morning on the main day of the ceremony, which is the 12th day of the second lunar month, the boats will turn towards the sea to celebrate Nghinh Co. A fisherman's boat that is considered the best seafarer of the year will be chosen to take the lead, on the boat there will be a throne, a royal dragon, along with members of the ceremonial committee, and elders with solemn costumes and lion crowns. dragon monk. With the sound of drums resounding in the sky, the group of boats set out to sea, traveling about 2-3 nautical miles, aiming to reach the place where she died in the past. The chief worshiper will begin the ceremony to welcome her along with the gods and grandparents. The ancestors returned to the palace to celebrate their death anniversary.

During the 3 days of Dinh Co Long Hai Festival, locals and tourists will stay up all night and all morning with typical festivals such as: Releasing lanterns, beating drums and gongs, racing boats and singing "ba troo". ”.

During the Dinh Co Long Hai Festival, Dinh Co is decorated extremely brightly and solemnly, with perhaps lights and flowers. Every house in ten thousand boats has incense tables, with incense lights, fruit cakes, raspberries... at night, lanterns are hung. The fishermen's boats were docked at the wharf, each one hung with bloody paper lights and flowers from the bow to the stern and even the mast. Boats from fishing villages such as Long Hai, Phuoc Hai, Phuoc Tinh, Vung Tau and some boats from the Central region come here all becoming splendid. Therefore, at night here appears the bustling and glorious scene of the lantern festival. Every boat here points its bow in front of Dinh Co to perform the "Adoration of Co" ritual.

When night falls, boats illuminate the entire sky. The fishermen believe that when their boat visits her, if it is beautifully decorated, it means expressing sincere respect to her and praying for her to bless and help the boat have more fish and shrimp. It is also from this concept that all boats compete to decorate their boats in the most beautiful way, creating a sea area with hundreds of colorfully decorated boats.

Another ritual that appears in Dinh Co Long Hai Festival is the animal release ceremony. People will buy birds to put in cages and organize their release, like the release on full moon or first lunar days that people in some places still do.

During the days of Dinh Co Long Hai Festival in Ba Ria Vung Tau, there will be troupes performing opera and opera. The plays have the same content as the plays in Dinh Co Long Hai Festival. In addition, people also organize lion and dragon dances, cotton dances and other folk games such as fish catching competitions, eel catching competitions, boat races, basket races... These folk games often attract a lot of young people. fishermen participated. Therefore, this game often takes place very vibrantly and excitedly because of the enthusiastic cheers of viewers, helping to make Dinh Co Long Hai Festival even more bustling and attractive.

Source: mia.vn