The Challenge of Exploring Vietnam’s Marble Mountains

One of the aspects of travel in Da Nang is that many of the recommended sites to visit are not really in the city of Da Nang. They are outside the city and thus require transportation to get there. While cab fees are not particularly expensive, nevertheless they do add up. The drivers we used were all polite and business like. They also had nice vehicles. That surprised me to be honest. Many of the vehicles had the modern safety devices and onscreen displays. I was impressed. So when we decided to go to Marble Mountains we had to figure out how to get there.

Fortunately for us Michelle was coming to get Jacob, and the two of them were going back to Hoi An to finish up some details of the clothing and leather work they had ordered. Andrea was supposed to go, but she was the one sick this day so she stayed behind. That left room in the cab for Silvette and me as the road would pass very close to the entrance to Marble Mountains.

Marble Mountains is a location of five mountain peaks. What makes it an unusual place is that there are also caves, large caves. Integrated around the mountains and in the caves are various Buddhist temples, pagodas and shrines. It makes for an interesting mix of culture and geology.

When we arrived, we had a choice of going up in an elevator or walking up stairs. Ever the adventurous duo we decided we could walk. It was more expensive to take the elevator as well, and as budget travelers we thought it was a waste of money.

A Vietnamese woman met us and began a conversation with us. She asked where we were from and pointed us in the direction of the ticket windows. She also asked our names and asked us to visit her shop when we finished.

When we saw the stairs we needed to climb, we had second thoughts. It wasn’t so much that it was a steep climb up. The problem was the steps were old, made of rocks which were wet in places, and also quite uneven. However, we forged ahead and made it without any incidents.

We arrived at an area with a temple. There were instructions that those who wanted to enter the temple needed to remove their shoes, hat, and coat as a sign of respect. I entered the temple after taking off my shoes and hat. I wanted to take some photos inside. However, the statues of the gods all begin to look quite similar as one goes to various temples, and these did as well. The one thing that fascinated me was two glass balls, one on each side of the altar. Inside the balls was a brightly lit lotus flower shape. It was quite unique.

In the courtyard around the temple were other statues, and the architecture was quite old and ornate. A large Buddha statue dominated one side of the courtyard. On the edge of the courtyard was a viewpoint of the surrounding area.

From this location we walked around to a large cave, Tang Chon Cave. First one entered into a passageway to the cave, and then the cave opened up. It was large and had a number of different statues and places for people to honor the gods represented here. While many visitors were just tourists, others took the location seriously and would either bow to the statues or light some incense to burn.

One group of young people in this location were acting quite inappropriately. One of the spaces had two statues of men who looked like they were playing some kind of a board game together. Two of these young people climbed into the space and had their photos taken as if they were a part of the scene. They were laughing the whole time. While I do not follow the Buddhist religion, I would also not disrespect their beliefs in such a way. Unfortunately there didn’t seem to be anyone guarding these historic locations.

After going through the cave, we returned to the pathways and continued our journey through the mountains. We had to climb another set of stairs which fortunately weren’t in too bad of condition. As we passed by two small pagodas, we got a good look at the rooftop of the temple. We walked by a statue of a lady in a pavilion. We also saw a scene where Buddha seems to be teaching his followers. What was interesting was animals were placed in the scene as if they too were heeding his instructions.

We rested at the top of the stairs for a while. We saw another cave area, but the stairs up seemed very challenging so we didn’t go. After passing through a portal in the rock, we saw a sign to the left indicating Heaven’s Gate. That sounded interesting so we decided to go there. It was another long climb up and quite steep. We were out of breath by the time we reached the top. Actually we didn’t reach the top. Near the top the steps stopped. Only large rocks remained which one had to scramble over. Also the top was not a solid platform but just rocks as well. A couple of people saw us hesitate and warned us so we felt it best not to attempt the final ascent. We never saw Heaven’s Gate.

The next place we explored was another cave, Huyen Khong. This one seemed better maintained. The stairs leading down to it were even and easy to walk, and there was an even floor at the bottom. The striking thing about this cave was the Buddha that sat halfway up the wall. There was also an altar area which had lights around it which was also unique and eye-catching as one entered. However, the floor was very wet here as there seemed to be a lot of water dripping from the ceiling so one had to be cautious walking.

As we continued on, we came to another temple area and a courtyard. There was an interesting old entrance to this area, and people were taking photos here.

Above this area were a couple of pagodas. To get to the area we had to pass through a photo shoot of a young woman dressed in traditional clothes. Much like the lake area in Hanoi, this seemed to be the area to take photos in Marble Mountains. The two pagodas were unusual in color. One was a faded pink. The other was a strong blue color.

We passed by another fairly large temple and came to an observation point that looked out over the surrounding area and other mountains nearby. The stairs up to this observation point were a little sketchy again.

We passed by one more temple area. From there steps went down to an interesting area below. This was a meditation retreat location. i saw a monk working in the area. Photography was not permitted here and talking was to be minimal. There was a path one could follow through the area. After walking through the retreat center, I was able to take some photos from up above.

At this point it seemed we had seen pretty much everything we were going to see. Silvette decided she did not want to walk back down the stairs. We were going to take the elevator down. Unfortunately the elevator was back on the other side of the mountains so we had to go up and down some of the same stairways to get there. We also had to pay the extra fee. However, by the elevator was Xa Loi Pagoda which we had not yet seen. It was the tallest of all the pagodas.

The elevator has a glass side so we could see the scenery as we went down. At the bottom of the elevator we saw an ATM machine. I was relieved to see that. Vietnamese money is a challenge. The bills are large. For example a 2000 bill is worth only about eight cents. I kept getting the bills confused. I thought the 2000 bill was a 20,000 bill. Originally I thought I had enough money for a cab, but when I really counted my money, I felt I was short. Thus my relief to see an ATM.

Remember the lady who greeted us when we arrived? Well she spotted us as we were getting our taxi. She remembered our names and kept insisting we were going to visit her shop. We felt a little guilty, but we didn’t visit her shop. We had no plans to buy any souvenirs from Marble Mountains.

When we got back to our hotel about mid-afternoon, we were hungry. We decided to have tea. This was something offered by our hotel each afternoon as part of our stay. We went to the rooftop of the hotel and ordered tea. We had to wait about five minutes for them to bring it out. However, this offered us an opportunity to check out the views from there.

There was one more moment of drama to end our day. We were eating dinner at a restaurant on the beach when three dump trucks came up on the beach. We couldn’t see exactly what they were doing. However, the tide was high, and one of the trucks got stuck in the sand. One of the other trucks chained up to him with his truck facing his and tried to pull him out. No luck. He got stuck as well. It was a comedy of errors.

Since it was a nice evening, we decided to walk up the beach. We encountered an excavator which looked like it was headed to rescue the other trucks. However, the tide was high, and it eventually stopped. Hopefully the trucks will be out before morning.

Marble Mountain was a truly interesting place, but the stairs proved quite challenging. One has to be prepared physically to meet the challenge. It is not a location for those with any kind of mobility issues.

We have one more full day in the Da Nang area. Tomorrow we will see another oft photographed location. I hope you will join me next week.

Credits: Silvette Lee took the photos of me and the tea set up.