The cave pagoda Tiên in Lạng Sơn

Lạng Sơn is famous for its beautiful spots Nhị Thanh grotto, Mẫu Sơn mountain, Tam Giáo grotto and Tiên pagoda. Tiên pagoda (also named Song Tiên) is located inside the mount Đại Tượng, 2km from Lạng Sơn city and classified as national relic in 1992.

From distance, Đại Tượng mount looks like a big elephant lying in the green rice-field Phia Luông. It’s a scenic mountain full of natural wonders. The cave Tiên lies half the way to the mountain peak and you have to go up 65 stone-steps that make you feel on the way to fairy-land. Inside there’s a big stalactite that looks like a person seated on a stone. It’s said to be the fairyman who went down to earth to make a well for the people and it’s a fairy’s well, 20cm wide with never-ending water. The locals established an altar to worship him.
Tiên pagoda and cave is well naturally-made. From the doorway there are thousands of stalactites and stalagmites sparkling in sunlight in different shapes and sizes (flying bats, elephants, fairies...). It’s really a wonder world that makes the cave more attractive. It’s also the worship place, to put their wishes and desires inside the mountains, there are more small grottoes mutually linked and you can view the whole sight of Lạng Sơn city.
There are also stone steles, it’s really sources of the cave history and good for literature studies written by poets, writers and mandarins in feudalist time.
Every year when comes the 18^th of January, there’s a festival in Tiên pagoda. It takes place in one day only and visitors from all corners come to Lạng Sơn to burn incenses, to wish for good luck. There are traditional games and sports such as lion-dance, human-chess, sli singing... It’s a cultural activity of Lạng Sơn people.
Tiên pagoda is a destination well-known in Lạng Sơn city.

ANH THƯ

Paradise (Thiên Đường ) Cave

Thiên Đường cave is situated the forestry sub-region of ecological recovery and the limestone core region of the World Natural Heritage of Phong Nha - Kẻ Bàng, Bố Trạch district, Quảng Bình province. This is among caves which do not have underground rivers and was discovered by explorers of the British Cave Research Association (BCRA) and geographical professors of the Hà Nội University in 2005.

Thiên Đường cave - Photo: Quang  Huy

Thiên Đường cave is some 7km from the Western branch of Hồ Chí Minh Road. Nature forms special features for the cave from the entrance gate to holds inside. Lying in the middle of the mountain side, the cave is surrounded by well-off old and wild forests. Despite being a 4km part of the cave being discovered, Thiên Đường shows the value of a karst structure which appeared millions of years ago, creating a mysterious beauty of pillars of stalactites.

 

The gate is small and is enough for a person to come in. It lies under a stone mountain of more than one hundreds of meters high. A 15m slope running to the cave foundation has a sophisticated shape with a countless number of big and round stalactites. The two sides of the slope have many traces of collapse and pillars of stalactite lying in disorder in different shapes.  The cave ceiling is over 100m high and over 200m wide.

The cave arch lies high hundreds of meters surprisingly with lots of block and pillar stalactites. A plain of tens of stalactite heaps of between 30 and 60cm high lies on the cave foundation looks like statues of Buddha and shapes of tigers, elephants and fish. A number of stalactite heaps look like gold lame if under the lamplight. The cave’s temperature stands at 20 – 21⁰C. 

 

Stalactites inside the cave look very strange with the silver white color and big and round pieces like tidily-arranged metal coins. The ranges of stalactites are around 60cm high and at right angles to one another, creating tanks with limpid water.

The tour to Thiên Đường cave is scheduled to open on occasion of April 30 and May 5, using bikes and horse-drawn carriages to mitigate environmental impacts and also to help visitors to see Phong Nha – Kẻ Bàng primeval forest. 

Vietnam Tourism Review 5/2010

Son Doong Cave

Son Doong, a cave belongs to the Phong Nha-Ke Bang grotto system in central Quang Binh Province, has been discovered to be the biggest in the world.

Son Doong cave, discovered by a local 18 years ago, is more than 200 meters wide, 150 meters high, and at least 6.5 kilometers long, though the explorers said they were unable to explore it fully. Bristish explorers have recently discovered that So Dong is much larger than the world’s biggest known cave.

 

The biggest section of Son Doong is five kilometers in length, 200 meters high and 150 meters wide, said Howard Limbirt of the British Cave Research Association team searching the area April 10-14, 2009. Son Doong is much larger than Deer Cave in Malaysia, currently considered the world’s largest, an explorer said (Deer is 90 meters wide, 100 meters high and 2 kilometers long). The Son Doong cave has replaced to take pole position as the world’s largest cave.

The Son Doong is situated below another cave in Phong Nha-Ke Bang, though its entry passage is very difficult to traverse. The exploration team said they had set foot on just 6.5 kilometers along the cave, as there is a large amount of fast flowing water inside Son Doong. It takes explorers six hours of walking through a 10 kilometer long forest path from Truong Son Highway to reach the mouth of Son Doong cave. The explorer added that the Quang Binh cave has beautiful stalactites and stalagmites that are not seen anywhere else.

Phong Nha-Ke Bang grotto system belongs to the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park. It is a limestone region of 2,000 square kilometers in Vietnam and borders another limestone area in Hin Nammo in Laos.

 

When describing the newly-discovered cave, the team’s spokesman, Haward Limbirt, said that it was a thing of overwhelming beauty and grandeur. He added that each grotto has its own beauty, but he is impressed by Ca Xai. This cave is near the Vietnam-Laos border. It is very deep and has a big lake inside. Explorers measured the depth of this lake, but they had only 200m of rope and the end didn’t reach the lake bed.

The British team suggested to the local authorities not to develop Son Doong Cave as a tourism site immediately to preserve its natural beauty.

World's Biggest Cave Found in Vietnam

1 - A giant cave column swaged in flowstone towers over explorers swimming through the depths of Hang Ken, one of 20 new caves discovered last year in Vietnam.

2 - A climber ascends a shaft of light in Loong Con, where humidity rises into cool air and forms clouds inside the cave.

3 - A half-mile block of 40-story buildings could fit inside this lit stretch of Hang Son Doong, which may be the world's biggest subterranean passage.

4 - A jungle inside a cave?

A roof collapse long ago in Hang Son Doong let in light; plants thickly followed. As "Sweeny" Sewell climbs to the surface, hikers struggle through the wryly named Garden of Edam.

5 - Mist sweeps past the hills of Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, its 330 square miles set aside in 2001 to protect one of Asia's largest cave systems.

During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese soldiers hid in caves from U.S. air strikes.

Bomb craters now serve as fishponds.

6 - Going underground, expedition members enter Hang En, a cave tunneled out by the Rao Thuong River.

Dwindling to a series of ponds during the dry months, the river can rise almost 300 feet during the flood season, covering the rocks where cavers stand.

7 - Headroom shrinks in the middle of Hang En as cavers pass beneath a ceiling scalloped by eons of floodwater rushing past. The river shortly reemerges onto the surface, then burrows into Hang Son Doong after a few miles.
 

8 - Like a petrified waterfall, a cascade of fluted limestone, greened by algae, stops awestruck cavers in their tracks.

9 - Moss-slick boulders and a 30-foot drop test author Mark Jenkins at the forest-shrouded entrance to Hang Son Doong.

"Even though these caves are huge, they're practically invisible until you're right in front of them," Jenkins says.

Hunters have found caves by spotting winds gusting from underground openings.
 

10 - Hang Son Doong's airy chambers sprout life where light enters from above - a different world from the bare, cramped, pitch-black spaces familiar to most cavers. Ferns and other greenery colonize rimstone.

In the jungles directly beneath roof openings, explorers have seen monkeys, snakes, and birds.

11 - Rare cave pearls fill dried-out terrace pools near the Garden of Edam in Hang Son Doong.

This unusually large collection of stone spheres formed drip by drip over the centuries as calcite crystals left behind by water layered themselves around grains of sand, enlarging over time.
 

12 - Navigating an algae-skinned maze, expedition organizers Deb and Howard Limbert lead the way across a sculpted cavescape in Hang Son Doong.

Ribs form as calcite-rich water overflows pools.

13 - Like a castle on a knoll, a rock formation shines beneath a skylight in Hang Son Doong. A storm had just filled the pool, signaling that exploring season was coming to an end.

 

14 - The trickiest challenge for the expedition team was to find a way over the Great Wall of Vietnam, an overhanging mass of flowstone that blocked the way deep inside Hang Son Doong.

Climbing specialists "Sweeny" Sewell and Howard Clarke here work on anchoring bolts to the slippery, porous rock to support the weight of climbers using ropes.

Once over the wall, the expedition team discovered a second entrance into the cave.

15 - Dubbed the Great Wall of Vietnam, a 200-foot cliff halted the advance of the first team to enter Hang Son Doong, in 2009. When explorers returned, Sewell drilled bolts for climbers to scale the obstacle with ropes.

A white streak below, to his right, marks how high water rises during the wet season.

16 - "It sounded like a roaring train," said "Sweeny" Sewell, describing the noise a second before a waterfall exploded into Hang Son Doong through the Watch Out for Dinosaurs doline, or sinkhole opening.

A rare dry-season downpour produced the thundering runoff. Were the cavers scared of drowning?

"Maybe if it were a smaller cave," said expedition leader Howard Limbert, "but not here."

17 - In the dry season, from November to April, a caver can safely explore Hang Ken, with its shallow pools. Come the monsoon, the underground river swells and floods the passages, making the cave impassable.
 

18 - Taking the only way in, a climber descends 225 feet by rope into Hang Loong Con. A survey party discovered the cave in 2010, hoping it would connect with the enormous Hang Son Doong.

A wall of boulders soon blocked the way, but a powerful draft indicated that a large cavern lay on the other side.
 

19 - Streams of light from the surface unveil stalagmites fat and thin on the floor of Hang Loong Con.

Cavers called the new find the Cactus Garden.

Tam Coc-Bich Dong, “South second nicest grotto”

Tam Coc – Bich Dong is also called “A terrestrial Ha Long Bay”, or the “Vietnam’s second nicest grotto” (to Huong Tich) for its poetic and inspirational natural scenery.
 

Tam Coc-Bich Dong

Briefings
 

Located in the Ngu Nhac Son Mountains, Hoa Lu District, Ninh Binh Province, it is a grandiose complex of Bich Dong pagoda and Tam Coc grotto which is one among the 21 crucial tourism destinations of Vietnam.

The zone is featured with a tropical climate, with 2 seasons. The cold and rainy season lasts from May to October, and the dry and hot season from Novermber to April. Its annual average temperature is 23.5^oC. As situated at the base side of the Red River Delta Triangle, it is a half-mountain half-plain area, with a coastline of 18 kilometers.

King Le Canh Hung ever said: “This is Vietnam’s second nicest grotto, after the Huong Tich Grotto in Ha Tay province”. Its pristine natural beauty together with a simple but nice countryside landscape, and a sacred spiritual life have converged into a fascinating and attractive Tam Coc-Bich Dong to numerous tourists.
These days, more and more people in the world have been coming here in various types of tours: ecological tours, culture, history, and festival tours. No one could deny that Tam Coc-Bich Dong has become a legend of rivers and mountains, a green, pure, and safe destination for every traveler.

Historical name

Bich Dong is a beautiful pagoda on the nearby Ngu Nhac Mountain dated to 1428 under the Le Dynasty, comprising three structures: Ha, Trung, and Thuong Pagodas, in ascending order. In 1773, Mr. Nguyen Nghiem (the father of the great writer Nguyen Du) visited this cave. He was much impressed by the whole magnificent scenery of mountains, waterways, fields, and sky covered in green mist. Thus he gave it a very beautiful and romantic name, Bich Dong, which literally means “Green Pearl Grotto”. This picturesque landscape is added by Tam Coc portion. It derives its name from its consisting of 3 caves (Hang Ca, Hang Hai, and Hang Ba); “Tam” means 3, “Coc” means cave. Tam Coc or “Three Caves” portion is of great enchanting charm and mystery, inviting tourists to come and explore!

Join a round trip!

Tam Coc Wharf – starting point of journeys

To begin the journey, tourists have to queue at Tam Coc Wharf to take a boat to travel along rivers. The pier is crowded with tourists from morning till afternoon. People coming here share the same pleasant feeling about such a nice picture with the classical communal house, ancient banian tree, mossgrown well, marble rock, and friendly locals. 

Tam Coc – a mysterious grotto

Visiting Tam Coc Grotto, tourists may feel like they had just disappeared from the real world to get lost in such a hidden fairy site, which is located approximately 2km from the pagoda. Tam Coc is 3 kilometers from Van Lam Wharf. Now just take a boat from Van Lam Wharf to reach the Tam Coc Grotto, which consists of the Hang Ca, Hang Hai and Hang Ba caves.

This might take you three hours on your small boat along the Ngo Dong river, beginning at the village of Van Lam and proceeding through a scenic landscape dominated by rice fields and karst towers. The largest of the grotto is 125m long with its ceiling about 2m high above the water. This grotto is adorned with beautiful stalactites and stalagmites of different shapes and colours that sparkle like gemstones. Now when drifting along the gentle Ngo Dong River under the Grotto, you can feel the deeply pure atmosphere with special smell of fresh rivers water and cool air from karst mountains when reaching each of the 3 caves in turns.

Among the three caves, Hang Ca is considered the most picturesque one since it is the longest and contains most fascinating natural arts deep inside. It is around 127m long, with a cave mouth of 20m wide. When leaving Hang Ca, just turn back to see it once again, you will feel that it were like a very old white-haired man sitting down for fishing. A Vietnamese legendary tells that this was a Heaven Land where that fishing man – a considered fairy one – lived, and flying above within the Heaven was a flock of fairies in graceful white dresses! You may be so much seduced by the beautiful fairy landscape that you do not even think of coming back at that time!

Hang Hai is nearly 1 kilometers far from Hang Ca. This is the second stop-over on your waterway journey, where can be found a series of colorful sparkling stalactites falling from the cave ceiling. This cave is about 60m long. The last but not least cave is Hang Ba, just nearby, is about 50m long, with lower ceiling than the above two, looking like a plutonic cupola.

Now getting out the whole grotto, looking out the vast landscape, you can see that a mighty mountainous and waterways are covering the limitless land. If moving further 4 kilometers, there comes “Fairy Stream”, a pure mirror-like stream where you can even see through to the stream-bed to contemplate flocks of fish swimming and looming in the moss layers. It is said in a fairy tale that fairies used to land on here to swim, thus it was named “Fairy Stream”.


Bich Dong Grotto

Now turning in the opposite position, you will soon reach Bich Dong pagoda, which is situated at the grandiose Ngu Nhac Mountain. The Pagoda is divided into three levels: Ha Pagoda (lower pagoda), Trung Pagoda (middle pagoda), and Thuong Pagoda (upper pagoda). On the mountain peak stands the statue of a scholar Mandarin looking at the horizon with the hope of viewing the spectacular landscapes of Hoa Lu. Visiting Bich Dong grotto, tourists have a great chance to turn back to the Post Le Dynasty’s legends.
From the upper pagoda, one has the most magnificent view of Bich Dong, which is romantically charming in terms of architecture and history. The location for this pagoda was chosen in 1428 after two monks were charmed by the view of the river and the mountains. Later, King Le Canh Hung wrote a poem in honour of the beautiful pagoda and landscape.
Bich Dong means “Green Grotto” or “Pearl Grotto”, which reveals its magnificient natural beauties. Colors, shapes, and sounds of the shining stalactites converges in such a captivating miracle that no one could refuse to touch, knock and contemplate them in deed. Honorably, amongst the most fascinating caves in Vietnam, “Fairy Grotto”, part of Bich Dong, is regarded as an “Elysium on Earth”.

                                 "Surrounding mountains full of water during 4 seasons,
                                  Rattan boat lightly drifting,
                                  Covered with mist and clouds, is Pagoda landscape”
are beautiful lines of verse offered to Bich Dong pagoda grotto, a rare natural work of Art.

”Sun Valley” – attractive ecological tourism

Here comes the final destination in your meaningful waterway journey – “Sun Valley” (Thung Nắng), an ideal ecological tourism spot for lovers of nature. Inside the valley, there is an ancient limestone temple with rock-style architecture shown in delicate carvings. Visiting this valley, you can relax in your small boat, with sun-bathing and sun playing in a quiet and pure atmosphere.

“Marvellous landscape, considerate service!”, said Ms Mery Luit, a German tourist, “if possible, I will soon come back to Tam Coc-Bich Dong”.

Tourist activities

• Taking a boat journey to: Tam Coc (from Van Lam Wharf on Ngo Dong River), Crossing Thuy Dong (through Ngu Nhac Sown Mountain range), Thach Bich-Thung Nang, Thung Nham-Vuon Chim, Linh Coc-Hai Nham, etc.
• Walking and mountain climbing: Bich Dong Mount and Pagoda, Tien Grotto, Thien Huong Grotto, Co Vien Lau ancient houses.

Source: vietnam-beauty

Beauty of Phong Nha-Ke Bang national park

Viet Nam's Phong Nha-Ke Bang national park has been recognised as a world natural heritage site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) at its 27th general assembly session being held in Paris from June 30-July 5.

At the session, delegates from over 160 member countries of  UNESCO World Heritage Convention agreed to include Phong Nha-Ke Bang park and 30 others worldwide to the list of world heritage sites.

Phong Nha-Ke Bang park is now the fifth UNESCO recognised site in Viet Nam after Ha Long Bay, the imperial city of Hue, the ancient quarter of Hoi An and the My Son historical site.

Phong Nha-Ke Bang national park, located to the north of the majestic Truong Son range in central Quang Binh province, is one of the world's two largest limestone regions.

The over 200,000 ha of parkland includes beautiful limestone formations, grottoes and caves, and boasts lush forestland covering 95 percent of the park area.     

The area is considered a paradise for researchers and explorers of grottoes and caves, and Vietnamese and British scientists have so far surveyed 20 with a total length of 70km. Of them, 17 are in the Phong Nha area and three in the Ke Bang area.

The Phong Nha cave itself which lends its name to the whole system is probably the most beautiful of all, containing many fascinating rock formations, enchanting visitors with evocative names such as Lion, Fairy Caves, Royal Court and Buddha.

Besides the grotto and cave systems, Phong Nha has the longest underground rivers, the largest caverns and passageways, the widest and prettiest sand banks, and the most astonishing rock formations in the world.

According to initial statistics, the primitive tropical forest in Phong Nha-Ke Bang houses 140 families, 427 branches, and 751 species of high-rated plants, of which 36 species are endangered and listed in the Viet Nam Red Book. The forest is also home to 32 sets, 98 families, 256 races and 381 species of four land backboned animals. Sixty-six animal species are listed in the Viet Nam Red Book and 23 other species in the World Red Book. In general, Phong Nha-Ke Bang's animals are more diverse than in other natural reserves and national parks.

Phong Nha-Ke Bang also boasts dozens of mountain peaks of over 1,000 metres still unexplored by men and seen as ideal sites for activities like climbing and exploration. Worthy of note are Peak Co Rilata with the height of 1,128 m and Peak Co Preu, 1,213 m. Lying between these peaks are valleys which promise tourists exciting eco-tours.

In addition to the diversity in the ecosystem, Phong Nha-Ke Bang is home to archeological and historical relics, such as an ancient hieroglyphic script of the Cham ethnic minority, King Ham Nghi's base built for the resistance war against French colonialists in the late 19th century, and the Xuan Son ferry station, Ho Chi Minh Trail and Road 20 used during the US resistance war.

Central Quang Binh province has poured heavy investment into upgrading the Phong Nha-Ke Bang visitor site to turn it into the country's major tourist destination.

Pac Po Cave

Pac Bo is a small village in Truong Ha Commune, Ha Quang District, 350km from Hanoi and 55km north of Cao Bang Town. It is where the T’rung and Mang Rivers meet. Suitably, Pac Bo means, “mouth of the source”

The famous Coc Bo Cave is where, in 1941, President Ho Chi Minh, upon returning from 30 years abroad, established his residence and worked on Vietnam’s revolutionary course. At the foot of Karl Mark Mountain is Lenin Stream, which was named by President Ho Chi Minh.


In Khuoi Nam, 1,000m from the Coc Bo Cavem Ho Chi Minh presided over the 8^thsession of the Indochina Communist Party (now Vietnam Communist Party) Conference in May 1941. Even now, this location remains a sacred place for the Vietnamese. Endowed with beautiful mountains and rivers, Pac Bo is quickly developing into a popular tourist area.