(VNF) - A parish in the north-central Vietnamese province of Nghe An has stepped up their Christmas decoration with an illuminated bamboo-made replica of France’s famous Eiffel Tower.

The ‘bamboo Eiffel’. (Photos by VnExpress/Hai Binh)

The ‘bamboo Eiffel,’ measuring 34 meters high and ten meters wide, was built in the yard of Yen Dai Parish in Nghi Phu Commune in the provincial capital of Vinh.

Locals spent two weeks assembling over 300 bamboo trees together using 100 kilograms of steel wires and 20 kilograms of nails.

The structure was then spray painted in white and decorated with 100 LED bulbs and 1,000 meters of flickering string lights.

The whole project cost VND 60 million (UDD 2,680) to make, according to Nguyen Van Nam, a local communal official.

The tower is lit up from 6:00 pm every day, and will be there until Tet (Lunar New Year), in late January 2017.

A group of around 60 families contributed VND 1 million (USD 44) to fund the project, which stands just a few miles from Ho Chi Minh’s boyhood home. (Photos by VnExpress/Hai Binh)

Christmas is not an official public holiday in Vietnam where most of the population practices a mix of ancestor worship, Buddhism and the Chinese philosophies of Taoism and Confucianism.

The first Jesuit missionaries arrived in Vietnam in 1614, but Catholic conversion grew widely under French colonial rule. Today, Christians of various persuasions make up roughly 10 per cent of the country’s population.

A Catholic correspondent based in the city said the families wanted to do something unique for the holiday, so they settled on the Eiffel Tower.

“Even us Christians agree it has nothing to do with Christmas,” he told VnExpress International.

In 2007, the parish had put together a similar Eiffel Tower at a smaller scale, measuring 17 meters high. The tower was later bought by a local hotel for VND7 million (USD313)./.

( Compiled by VNF )