Huong pagoda is located in Huong Son commune in My Đuc district – Ha Tay province’s (now Ha Tay province belong to Ha Noi city), about seventy-five kilometers southwest of Hanoi. Huong Son’s mountains, rivers and forests make it unique in the great plains of northern Vietnam. This complex of pagodas is set amdidst mountains, forest, lakes and caves surrounded by vast green olains of rice. Yên stream flows between two mountain only for about three kilometers; however, visitors enjoying a boat ride through the surrounding landscape may feel that this stream is endless.
Small boats carrying pilgrims crowd the stream during the festival season. Visitor pass karst forms, many of which are named for animals, such as Phoneix mountain and Cheo mountain which resembles an Indian python. Ngu Nhac mountain houses Trinh temple, where visitors can stop and burn incense for the God of the mountain. Before reaching Tro wharf, the boat pass by Chieng and Ong Su mountain, Son Thuy Huu Tinh cave, Trau cave, Hoi brigde and Dau valley.
The boat the stops at Tro wharf, where the brook seems to expand as if embracing an earthcum-limestone mount topped by Thien Tru pagoda. Built at the end of the seventeenth century, Thien Tru pagoda has many poems inscribed on its stone walls. It bell tower which is 8.2 meters tall is shaped like a lotus flower.
Visitors can follow a small path from Thien Tru pagoda, turn right and then continue for about a kilometer to Thien Son pagoda, which was built to worship Bodhisattva Quan Am and is on a high mountain in Nui Tien grotto, has stalactites that can be tapped to make mucisal sounds.
Visitors can continue along the path to the Hương Tich pagoda and Grotto, about a kilometer and a half from Giai Oan. Many consider Huong Tich to be Vienam’s most picturesque cave, it is deep within a mountain and about 120 steps from the opening, which looks like the mouth of dragon. Inscribed on the gate is “Nam Thiên Đệ Nhất Động” (the most beautiful cave in the South).
Visitors can also see Tuyet Son mountain and from its summit, take in a panorama of the Hương Sơn area with its many rivers and brooks crossing the landscape and view the stone walls that follow one another like a long rampart. In spring, the apricot trees thriving in valleys bloom, adorning the landscape in white. Huong Son and Huong pagoda have been the subject of many songs, poems and paintings. The Huong pagoda’s spring festival attracts tens of thousands of tourists and pilgrims, who come to admire the area’s beautiful landscape and implore the spirits for goodluck, wealth and happiness.
You want to see more pagodas in Ha Noi, read The Pagodas and Temples in Ha Noi or Ha Noi’s pagoda.
Source: Vietnamdeluxetravel
