De Doong Temple Festival 2025

De Doong Temple is located in De Doong village (also known as “Giang Dong”), next to the Bang River flowing through the Hoa An basin. This basin was formed by the activity of the Cao Bang - Tien Yen deep fault. De Doong Temple is the only place in the tourist attractions of Non Nuoc Cao Bang Geopark (CVDCC), where visitors can experience the life and landscape like in a village in the Red River Delta, in the middle of a mountainous and watery area.
The origin of the temple is to worship the stone god, associated with the legend of a young fisherman who was filial to his parents. Previously, the temple was a shrine built in Vo Ban. This temple is very sacred, everyone passing by must take off their hats, and people riding horses must get off their horses. After many times, the temple was moved to its current location. After the fall of the Mac Dynasty, they fled to Cao Bang (1594 - 1677) and ordered the army and people to build a brick temple. In 1677, after defeating the Mac Dynasty, the Le Dynasty added the statues of Buddha and the Holy Mother to worship together, as a place to pray for national peace and people's peace. Therefore, people still call it a pagoda. The temple has a Dinh-shaped plan, with three longitudinal compartments. The back room is where ceremonies are held, worshiping Tang Monk, good and evil gods, and a stone throne. The middle room worships the mandarin and Buddha statues. The outermost room is where people hold ceremonies. De Doong Temple is also the place where the ceremony to announce and celebrate the establishment of the Cao Bang Provincial Provisional People's Committee (June 15, 1945) took place. With its cultural and historical values, in 2008, De Doong Temple was recognized by the Provincial People's Committee as a provincial-level historical and cultural relic.

Right after the opening drumbeat of the festival by the Organizing Committee, there was an art performance with singing, dancing, poetry recitation, and sli luong performances by the hamlets in the commune. At exactly 00:00 a.m on January 15, the Organizing Committee offered incense and offerings at De Doong Temple, praying for favorable weather, bountiful crops, good health for everyone, entering a year of emulation in labor production, and successfully carrying out socio-economic tasks.
This year’s De Doong Temple Festival is held with many fun sports activities such as: displaying local agricultural specialties, performing traditional costumes, traditional sports activities by athletes from the hamlets, etc., attracting a large number of people and tourists from all over the country to attend the festival. According to local people, the temple is famous for its sacredness, so not only during the festival but also on the first and fifteenth day of each month, many tourists from all over the country often come to worship, pray for wealth and luck.