Tam Coc – Bich Dong is a famous tourist destination in Vietnam, known with names as: “A terrestrial Ha Long Bay ” or “The second beautiful cave in the Northern”. Tam Coc (three caves) including Ca grotto, Hai grotto and Ba grotto. All three caves are formed by Ngo Dong River running through the mountain… Tam Coc – Bich Dong is included limestone caves and historic sites related to Tran Dynasty, located mainly in Ninh Hai commune – Hoa Lu – Ninh Binh.
Here, visitors will be involved in ecological tours, scenic tour, culture tour, historic tour, festivals, and spiritual tour…
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Location of Tam Coc – Bich Dong
Tam Coc – Bich Dong is about 90 km from the center of Hanoi, going along Highway 1 for reaching to Ninh Binh city, and then you go 25 km more to come to Tam Coc – Bich Dong. Tam Coc – Bich Dong tourist site has a natural area of 350.3 hectares, including many lines of tourist boat on the river, cycling and walking, there is connection of nearly 20 tourist sites.
Tam Coc – beautiful caves
Tam Coc is three caves. Keep going along the Ngo Dong River, you will get into the 3 caves which are through mountains with different names such as: Ca grotto is 127 meters long, getting through a huge mountain, the entrance is over 20 m wide. In the cave is quite cool and having many colorful stalactites hanging down with a lot of shapes. Continue your journey, you will come to Hai grotto, it is nearly 1 km from Ca grotto, about 60 m long, ceiling of the cave has a lot of strange stalactites hanging down… Finally, Ba grotto is near Hai grotto, about 50 m long, the cave ceiling like a stone arch and lower than two other caves. In order to be able to look the whole of three caves and taking many beautiful pictures of Tam Coc, you will take about 2-3 hours. If you want to choose beautiful corners for shooting photo, you should talk to the boatman in advance to find a convenient place for you to climb the mountain.
Bich Dong – peaceful pagodas
Bich Dong is pagodas. After ending the visiting of Tam Coc caves, you can visit Bich Dong Pagoda – an ancient pagoda is associated with limestone mountain and oriental style, about 2 km from Tam Coc pier…. According to history books, epitaphs and the elder in village, in the past, pagoda and caves have the same name is Bich Son (Green Mountain). In 1773, in a survey trip to Son Nam area with Trinh Sam king, Nguyen Nghiem Vizier – father of the great poet Nguyen Du named for caves … Because the scenery of caves is too beautiful and magnificent, so caves should be dubbed “The second beautiful cave” standing behind “The most beautiful cave” by King Trinh Sam conferred …
We can say that: the top landscape of Ninh Binh province is the harmonious combination between the wonderful scenery of the cave, the rugged mountains, the rivers and poetic streams with the talent of people creating a united and inseparable combination.
Panorama of temple was built according to the layout type “Three throne”. At the foothill, Ha Pagoda was built under the typeface “Dinh” for five main compartment and two side compartment with the architectural lines which bring Asian style such as: trusses, horizontal beams, vertical beams and cherry wood bar. The roof has two classes with curved roof; the roof consists of 8 roofs. The stone pillars in pagoda are one-volume stone, do not patchwork, higher than 4 meters, made these pillars is a feat …. Keep going about 120 green stone steps, you come to the Trung pagoda, a pagoda very nicely with a half hiding in the cave and another half is outside. After finishing Buddhist ceremonies at pagoda, you continue to climb about 40 stone steps to Thuong pagoda at the highest position, place of worship Guanyin. The two sides of the main temple are two temples for worshiping The Land spirit at the right side and Duc Son Tran at the left side.
Amazing rice fields on the way to Tam Coc – Bich Dong
In the beginning of summer, Tam Coc sky is high, no ripple translucent clouds. Going down along the Ngo Dong River, water is clean and clear as the lake in autumn, boat paddles gently brandish to take visitors into the heaven of the summer. Rolling and timeless limestone mountains are reflected on the blue water. Wind blows through mountain rocks carrying rice incense, birdsong rang clear, sparkling sunshine gets through the cave … makes extremely romantic scenery. And how wonderful of the moment when you are leisurely sitting on the boat for esplanade and watching golden rice fields by the river. Same identical mountains, immense “golden sea” of rice … open up a beautiful picture, seems to extend to endless. There, we encountered countless gorgeous and peaceful colors of the life. It is not only surprised with the bright yellow color of rice, but you also admire the brilliant palette of green mountain, silver color of the water combined with the clear sky.
Two sides of the river, local people are in a hurry for harvesting but they still not forget for a big smile when tourists take a photo of them. These days in Tam Coc, beside boats carrying tourists, there are boats carrying the teeming yellow rice with radiant faces of the farmers during the harvest season. The good time for watching the most beautiful rice season is between late May and early June. The rice fields here will start turning to the yellow color to catch a prosperous season in about 2 weeks. Coming to Tam Coc – Bich Dong, you can boat through Ca cave, Hai cave and Ba cave to feel the cool air and see stalactites hang on the ceiling like drooping iridescent pearls. The romantic beauty of green and blue water, golden rice fields which blooming two sides of Ngo Dong River just before your eye will give you many emotions which are hard to describe about the beauty of Vietnamese rice field.
