Tam Thanh Cave

Lang Son, a north-eastern province situated on the Sino-Vietnamese border, is also home to the picturesque grottoes of Tam Thanh.

Tam Thanh Grottoes include three grottoes: Nhat Thanh, Nhi Thanh, and Tam Thanh. The most famous is Tam Thanh on the western end of Ky Lua street, because it resembles a crouching elephant on a vast grassy field.

Its door is approximately 8 m high, opening to a corridor with 30 stone steps carved into the mountain. The entrance is almost obscured from sunlight, because it is covered with dense foliage of trees. High on the wall to the right side of the entrance, there remains a lovely poem carved deep into the stone. Poet Ngo Thi Si (1726 - 1780) carved one of his texts on the grotto wall while he was a Mandarin guard in Lang Son. The poem praises the magnificent natural beauty of the area, more specifically the sound of the water stream falling on hundreds of rocks, almost like a graceful murmur. Here, one can explore a grotto with marvellous stalactites and a statue of Buddha.

Nearby the famous Tam Thanh landscape, you will also have chance to see the Vong Phu Mountain, meaning "waiting for a husband”. Legend has it that Lady To Thi with a baby in her hands stood there day and day waiting for the return of the husband who had gone to war. She waited so long that both she and her child were turned into stone. Therefore, the legend of Lady To Thi was engraved in the innermost of the heart of Vietnamese people. Nature created the statue of a mother who held her child in the arms and waited for her husband’s return on the peak of the mountain. This statue is like a symbol of Vietnamese women’s loyalty.