The OTHER Caves @ Marble Mountain,
The Marble Mountain Secret Spot &
Shrine Row
Almost everyone who visits Da Nang is likely very familiar with Marble Mountain. This impressive limestone tower is riddled with caves and as such is a "must-see" attraction for most visitors. However, for those that have been to Marble Mountain a few times, and are looking for a new way to see them, consider checking out the OTHER caves at Marble Mountain, or, the caves that are located in Kim Son Mountain, across the highway from the ultra-popular Thuy Son Mountain. While nowhere as extensive as the primary tower, this small cave is still worth a quick visit. In addition, this will introduce a couple of beautiful and removed areas around Ngu Hanh Son that still possess some authentic charm of the community that has long existed here at Marble Mountain.
The entrance to this cave is found at a large pagoda and monastery complex called the "Chua Quan The Am". The "Quan The Am" is the Goddess of Mercy, and is the same saint that is honored at Da Nang's famous Chua Linh Ung. Between this complex and the Kim Son Tower, there is a large open congregation space, and at the top of a small staircase, next to shrine, a small hole is hidden in the folds of rock, with a small staircase dropping down into the cave. The first chamber is around 5 meters tall, and extends a surprising way back into the rock. A small shrine sits on the wall on your left.
At the end of this chamber, another tunnel descends further down into the mountain. Depending on the season, this is often as far as you can go, as during the rainy season the local water table rises greatly, and this bottom chamber floods. If its dry season, then it's possible to wrap around the corner and drop into one more chamber, which even in the hottest and driest months still has a spring-fed pool in the very bottom. Once you are done here, there's little to do but turn around and head back out!
While not as deep or as large as the more famous Thuy Son Mountain across the highway, this quiet cave may offer more peace and quiet than anywhere on the other side. It's certainly not a destination cave but if you live in the area and need to spend a few minutes doing something interesting, consider a quick visit to this cave.
Rural Ngu Hanh Son
"The Marble Mountain Secret Spot"
This beautiful rural slice of Vietnam is unfortunately likely to have a limited lifespan. The ever-increasing urban sprawl of Da Nang will one day swallow the entire Marble Mountain area, and this beautiful hidden area will probably be lost. But, until that happens, its worth paying a visit to this tucked away corner of quiet Vietnam. Here, found in a few key spots near the western side of the towers, are some places I like to call the "Marble Mountain Secret Spots". There are two of these secret spots that are worth visiting.
The first of these "Secret Spots" is found to the north of Kim Son Mountain, between in and where the small hill of "Nui Ghenh" squeezes down to the Co Co River. Driving from the highway down to this area is impressive because the further you get from the highway the more it seems like you are going back in time, or at least getting progressively more rural. If you are coming from the city, first you will drive down Le Van Hien street, an 8 lane super highway. Turning off this and on to Su Van Hanh street still puts you on a 6 lane super road. However, turning off this brings you to a 2 lane road, and a short ways down the road at your next turn, you end on a one lane path through the neighborhoods. Its a wonderful transition from busy and hectic to quiet and peaceful.
After turning off Su Van Hanh, and onto Bui The My street, you will cruise through some neighborhoods filled with stone cutting businesses. This is, and has long been, the economic backbone of the Ngu Hanh Son / Marble Mountain community. In the past, statues and other sculptures were done using stone quarried from the mountains themselves, but these days all of the stone is imported from Afghanistan and Pakistan. I met a nice man one time at the Burger King who was an importer for a company from Pakistan and passed along that the stone industry in the area is doing well, which you can see for yourself by the raw amount of stone cutting businesses.
The first sight worth seeing is just down on the left about 100 meters. The street will bend away from the mountain, and will pass a small dinh and some rice paddies with a view of the river. Stop immediately, for right at the base of the tower, just hidden from view of the road, is a small lake. The dinh you just passed overlooks it and makes a great place to take some photos. This lake is entirely natural, and is directly connected to the plumbing of the spring inside the cave above, and if you have just come from the cave you may realize you are standing less than 200 meters from the chamber you were just in. Just like the water level in the cave, the lake's size fluctuates with the season, and while it will shrink in size in summer, it will never fully dry up. The local farmers know this and have installed some pumps to take advantage of this.
Now for the important directions. Past this dinh and lake, drive about 300 meters, past a row of houses on your left, and look for a small sign saying "Chua Huong Son" with an arrow pointing to the left. Turn left here and start down this path. Please go slowly and quietly through this next section as it is directly in a local neighborhood. Immediately after the first straightaway, turn RIGHT, and drive less than 100 m forward, and then turn at your first left. You will squeeze between a couple of local houses, and drive around two sides of the beautiful house pictured below. It is an amazing sight, as raw and authentic as can be in this area. This house is a perfect representation of a classic local housing design, and seeing this can help give an idea of what the whole area looked like in times past. There is some good energy here.
At the corner in front of this house, turn right, and follow along the path down and around some rice fields, along a wall, and you will eventually end up on a large concrete path next to the Co Co River. The road extends down to the left about 300 meters before dead-ending; there is a route back to Bui The My there but it mostly stays in the fields and doesn't have the same amazing local houses. Turn right onto this path, and immediately on the right you will see the Huong Son Pagoda. This is a classic Vietnamese temple, and they have a small coffeeshop out front, so it is nice to go pay respects, send some good will out into the world, and then have a nice rest. The view is quite pretty here, and on clear days the mountains that ring Da Nang will be quite dramatic on the horizon.
Past the Temple, the road continues around to the toe of Nui Ghenh. Obvious eyes will see the new shrine just past the Temple, and more keen eyes will spy a small shrine hidden in the greenery along the bottom of the hill. It is worth a visit over there if you have time. Back on the road, the very end of the mountain is home to a water pumping station for the city, which is shaded by a large fichus tree that is growing straight out of the rock of the mountain. There is a really nice view back over the city, with the peaks of the Hai Van Pass rising behind, from this spot. Follow the road around and you'll soon find yourself at a newly renovated dinh.
Dinh Khue Bac
This dinh has quite a recent story. I first made my way to this dinh in 2012. At that time it was in a ruinous state, abandoned and without upkeep or maintenence for obviously some time. The main roof was intact, although the secondary room next to it was open to the sky and had a tree growing out of it. Still, it was quiet, beautiful, out of the way, and it made a good place to get out of the rain for a few minutes on a winters' day. Later, after Typhoon Nari hit in 2013, the main roof caved in and the tree in the courtyard/second room had fallen over, taking out a piece of the wall. Certainly this seemed like the end of this revered structure, but yet in the spring of 2016 this dinh was brought back to life and made even better, getting an almost top to bottom rebuild, with more rooms and a large size than ever before. It sure looks pretty good these days.
One really neat thing about this dinh is the view- from the front of it you have a pretty incredible view over three things that could really be considered the three parts of Vietnam today. The first is the rice fields and vegetable fields in the foreground. These scenes represent the past of Vietnam, which many people are still very much connected to in today's society. In the middle you have the city, the development and modernity that has come to Vietnam in the last 30 years, and the growth that has been a result of that. And finally, you have the peaks in the background, the eternal core that was here long before anyone showed up and will remain long after we are gone. A great view to soak in a enjoy, that's for sure.
Once you are done at the dinh, turn right and follow Bui The My. Quickly on the right, within the grounds of the dinh but behind a usually-open gate is a beautiful spot called the "Tree Shrine". Here, a shrine has been integrated into a huge tree, so that natural and man made flow together in a beautiful symphony. Well worth a quick stop. Quickly beyond this, on the left, are some beautiful houses that have clearly been here a long time, as well as some newer houses and a beautiful dinh, all living under the shadow of the mountain.
"Shrine Row"
The second Marble Mountain Secret Spot is a street I like to call "Shrine Row". This quiet street follows along the most southwestern corner of the Ngu Hanh Son area, and is noteworthy because it is rich with numerous religious sites, many of which are unique and highly interesting, and thanks to the large trees that cover the area around these shrines, there is much shade here and it makes a great place to get out of the heat, or even out of the rain, for a few minutes. Many of the sites display symbolism that is uncommon in other sites around the Da Nang area. Although short, this road packs quite a lot of great stops along its length.
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Entrance to this area is found by taking one of a handful of narrow alleys off the main highway, to reach a small street behind a row of businesses and houses that runs parallel to the highway itself. Follow this street south, even if it seems like you are not on the right place. Finally, at what looks like a dead end, turn right, and follow the road down less than 100 m to the start of Shrine Row.
The first thing of note is a pair of interesting figures located in a small overhang at the eastern end of the mountain this road follows along. The first is a green figure, who looks rather angry, and is seated whilst holding a sword. The second one is a bearded man painted in yellow, kneeling and seemingly in good spirits. The yellow man with the beard is interesting as he must represent someone not typically of this area, as a lot of the ethnicities founds in this part of Vietnam over the years are not known for their robust beard growth. In addition to these figures, there are some other curious figures as well: a large man with an animal, either a dragon or a lion at his side; an odd lumpy figure with no body but a human head; a large turtle; a snake guarding a book, and a large whale with a Goddess of Mercy on it's back. The wide open courts around the figures, under the trees and between the road and the rock, makes a great place to get out of the heat or rain for a while.
After this is a small prayer house, and then another shrine. Here, there is a small reflecting pool that may or may not have water in it, with a Buddha perched on a pedestal above the water. Further behind this is a small cave in the wall, called the "Hang Phat Dong", and tucked into the back niches of this cave are a gold-plated Buddha, and a smaller multi-armed figurine of Avaloakitesvara, or a Bodhisattva that represents the compassion of all buddhas. The multi-armed figure is definitely very Hindu in origin, and was adopted into Buddhism, like many pieces of symbolism that did the same.
One thing that makes "Shrine Row" so inviting is that the other side of the street is a quiet canal off the Co Co River. A couple of quiet local wood bridges span it, crossing over to a couple of houses and some fields of rice and vegetables. In addition, growing along this canal in several impressive sprouts are some thick groups of bamboo. On one hand its nice there are no coffeeshops here to spoil the beautiful and quiet nature of this street, but on the other, sitting amongst these bamboos by the side of the river would be a nice place to hang out.
The rest of the Shrine Row is a collection of different buildings each with a different purpose. Some are temples for worship, others are places of learning, and others are for the students and wards of these buildings to learn. In addition to these, there are about a dozen or so small houses. Not a bad place to live in the Da Nang area at all. At the end of the road is currently a construction site, where in the future the nearby monastery and temple complex will fill the view, and likely the road will connect over to Su Van Hanh. For now, the street dead ends at another wooden local bridge spanning the canal over to some rice paddies. The views off to the west are impressive here, especially on a clear day.
The Map
All photos copyright Kit Davidson.
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