Cu Da Village is located on the bank of the Nhue River, about 15 kilometres from center of Hanoi, bearing characters of a Vietnamese village with hundred-year-old banian-trees, rivers, ponds, village wells and ancient mossy walls.
Cu Da villagers still keep traditional and neighbourly lifestyle which has been maintained from generation to generation. So, once visitors coming Cu Da, they will find it easy to inquire the way to some family in the village. This is really a respectfully cultural feature of Cu Da people.
The main village road is built along a riverside, every lane has a gate. The village pagoda is classified as a national relic. It’s Linh Minh Tu and a stone column is inscribed “the pagoda was renovated in 1695.”
Houses in Cu Da are low and deep in length, so they are always cool in summer and warm in winter. Architecture is specified in Nguyen feudalist dynasty, nearly made of wood. On beams, pillars, there are delicate sculptures. In the middle of the houses, there are ancestral altars, panels and parallel scrolls. Houses with the western architectural style mixed with traditional art were built.
These were communal houses built under the French-style so that villagers could gather together and make decisions on things of common concern. Each house was numbered like in a big city. Cu Da is among a few Vietnamese villages whose houses were numbered. This has made it so unique, rarely seen in any village in the northern delta area.
On a river bank, there’s a flag-pole built in 1929, a communal house of the village-council, a school. At one end of the village (entry road), there’s a low earthen hill named Dong Gia, it’s thought to be a centuries-old tomb since the old Chinese colony.
Not only well known for a place with many ancient houses and ancestral temples dating back to over one hundred years, the Cu Da Village is also noted for its traditional handicraft of vermicelli making.