In the spring climate with humid cool spring rain, I left behind noisy city to get on a small and neat coach to start my travel itinerary in discovering caves in Trang An and felt very eager. What a wonderful landscape! In front of my eyes, it appeared to be a gigantic, primitive and poetic natural landscape.
Referred to as “Ha Long Bay on land”, Trang An owns wonderful landscape with harmonious perspective of ranges of limestone mountains, lakes and caves on an area approximately 2,168 ha. According to geologists, about 200 million years ago, this site used to be a gulf, and undergone geological movements that we can see its tectonic structures today.
In busy life, we rarely had opportunity to enjoy such a peaceful and primitive space. White goats quietly grazing at mountainous slopes, fish swimming here and there in water, and birdsongs…all created an ideal atmosphere to enjoy natural beauty and forget sorrow. Nenuphar plots in red color integrated with green of vegetation, blue sky, mountains and rivers…further decorated the spring picture more splendid.
Female rowers skillfully rowed the boat to take us through 12 caves, in a round tour without sailing back. Innumerable cliffs were outlined against the water surface. This site had 31 lakes, reservoirs intercommunicated through 48 caves with total length of 12,226m, of which there were water-through caves in length of 2km. And names of caves were either strange or familiar, that made us feel interesting, i.e…Dia Linh cave, Sinh Duoc cave, May cave, Dark cave, Light cave, Wine Brewery cave, Com cave, Vong cave, Lang cave, Ao Trai cave….
Cave space was wide, narrow unexpectedly. At one place, cave ceiling was immeasurably high and flat, at another place, stalactites were at low position and you had to lower your head to avoid any touch with stalactites. Caves had many stalactites in different and strange shapes and sparkling in the lamplight. Water ran from cave ceiling in each drop gently, and that made cave air cool, and made visitors feel cheery.
At Trang An, historical temples were also well preserved. The first destination in our itinerary was Trinh temple. Legend has it that this temple was built for a very long time to worship two mandarins of the Dinh dynasty – who protected this site.
After incensing at Tran temple – where General Tran Quy Minh in the 18th Hung King time, who defended Son Nam pass, we were taken by boat through Seo Lon cave, then Seo Be cave to reach to Phu Khong. This was one of the most important spiritual destinations in Trang An Landscapes Complex – worshiping 7 loyal mandarins of the Dinh dynasty. Legend has it that after King Dinh Tien Hoang passed away, 7 loyal mandarins came here to suicide in order to keep secret of the place where the King dead body was buried, and they were extremely admired by people. Touching the 1,000-year-old decandrous persimmon tree at a corner of the temple, I knew interesting information about two kinds of fruits, big and round, and small and flat. It seemed to be that in the sacred land, vegetation was also legendary?
Along the waterway, we had occasions to talk with local friendly women. They were either rowed the boat or thoughtfully reminded visitors to dispose garbage at designated place to keep green – clean – beautiful environment. By learning about the facts, I knew that every one working at Trang An Ecological Tourist Site was carefully trained and fostered knowledge of environmental protection. At this site, there was also a team to collect garbage everyday. Currently, Trang An is selected by many domestic and foreign visitors for their tours, a part from beautiful landscape, local people here are very friendly, visitors are rarely disturbed by vendors.
On average, each day Trang An receives hundreds of visitors, even receives up to 2,000 visitors on busy day. There are over 1,000 tourist boats to serve visitors, arrangement of tourist boats at the boat station is well done, and safety for visitors is completely ensured. The itinerary of discovering Trang An on days of the year beginning really brought to us good lessons of behavior with the nature, loyalty and love of homeland of predecessors.
Leaving Trang An, we thought of the idea by Prof. Richard Engelhardt – an expert of UNESCO at an international workshop on Trang An: “Trang An seems to be a colossal magnet in Ninh Binh province. You should awake values of this landscape to attract everyone”. And I thought that Trang An was awaken each day….
Box:
- Trang An Landscapes Complex in Ninh Binh province includes 3 sites: Hoa Lu Ancient Capital, Tam Coc – Bich Dong Landscape, and Trang An Ecological Tourist Site, covering an area of 4,000 ha.
- Vietnam has submitted documents of this special national relic complex to UNESCO in Paris for recognition as the World Heritages according to mix criteria with natural, geological, geomorphologic and unique cultural values.
Article by Mai Hong
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