After lunch at the My Son Sanctuary, we headed back towards Danang City. Danang City isn’t really that far but there are still a few sights to see before we get to the city. One of these sights are the Marble Mountains.
The Marble Mountains, called Ngũ Hành Sơn in Vietnamese, are essentially limestone monoliths in the middle of the plain and are just south of Danang City. There are a total of five monoliths each one name after each of the five elements (earth, fire, water, metal and wood). The limestone monoliths have tunnels and temples built into them and do seem to be a popular tourist attraction even for the locals.
Our guides brought us to one of the monoliths and probably the most popular one, I didn’t really know which one it was though. We entered from the side where there was a store selling marble statues. It used to be that the marble from the Marble Mountains was used to make these statues, but now the marble is imported from China. They are, still however, carved here in the store. There were a lot of these figures on display and they would probably help you ship the bigger ones over, I didn’t bother asking how much they cost since they would obviously cost and arm and a leg.
It was amusing to just wander through their collection of statues ranging from Buddhist carvings to Christian inspired carvings. From here there is a stairway leading up to the top of the monolith. After a few minutes of walking, we reached the viewing deck. There was a marvelous view of the city together with the others monoliths. It actually feels like looking at Uluru in Vietnam except of course it wasn’t red and it is in the middle of a city.
After taking a few photos on from the viewing deck, we continued on to where the path leads us. There was a small mausoleum overlooking the city. And further on there was a Buddhist temple with services being conducted. As we follow the path, I notice that the people seem to get lesser and lesser. It was already quite late in the afternoon and I guess people have already gone home. There was a path that led us to the inside of the monolith.
The place felt like a cave but this enclosure had a skylight which lets sunlight through. There was a small Buddhist temple in the enclosure and it was very serene inside. There weren’t that many people and the people that were there were very quiet. Obviously respecting that this is a place of worship. The place is also quite cool since it was shielded from the outside. On the way out there was a flight of stairs that was quite dark and it would be better for visitors to bring a torch just in case.
The staircase leads to a path down the monolith but along there way there was this magnificent pagoda. Further down there was another Buddhist temple with a prominent statue of Buddha beside it. After taking a few photos we continued down the stairs where our guides were waiting for us.
[xmlgm {http://www.worldwanderings.net/kml/MarbleMountains.kmz}]