Hello everybody! I am very happy to see you again today, wish you a happy and productive day.
Today I will introduce to you an interesting tourist destination, suitable for exploring and resting, especially on weekends with friends or family, it is a small town located in Vinh Phuc province, Tam Dao town.
Tam Dao town in Tam Dao district, Vinh Phuc province, which is likened to a miniature Sa Pa or Da Lat located in the Northeast of Vietnam, has become a famous and familiar destination for many tourists near and far. Especially, in recent years, Tam Dao has been invested and developed in infrastructure and tourism services a lot. Therefore, the Tam Dao tourist area increasingly attracts a large number of domestic tourists and even foreign tourists. The special thing is that Tam Dao town is only about 70km from the center of Hanoi city, and it only takes you less than 2 hours by car. Distance from Hanoi to this beautiful town of Tam Dao includes about 50km along Highway 2 and about 24km along National Road 2B including 13km of pass road with winding bends.
Tam Dao is a rocky mountain range, the reason this place is called Tam Dao is caused by three high mountains Thach Ban with an altitude of 1,388m, Thien Thi with a height of 1,375m, and Phu Nghia with a height of 1,400m rising above the sea of clouds, so it is called Tam Dao (meaning 3 islands). Because Tam Dao town is located right at the top of the mountain, after riding a motorbike through a winding road with dangerous turns, this place is covered with clouds all year round, so the climate here is very special separate. At the foot of the mountain is a humid tropical monsoon climate, which is a typical climate of Vietnam, then up to the town located on the top of this mountain, the climate changes completely cold of a temperate climate, like that of European countries.
We arrived in Tam Dao on the autumn day, on the way back to Hanoi for my northeastern Vietnam conquest in 2019. So the weather here is quite interesting. You will feel the cold of autumn when staying on this high mountain. If you come to Tam Dao this season, you must bring warm clothes to keep your body warm if you do not want to catch a cold. Accompanying the chilly weather is fresh air, a little bit of moisture from the surrounding clouds. Here in the early morning or evening, the clouds will be low, covering a small town, just a few meters in front of you, you will not be able to see anything. Tam Dao is not crowded and large, only with a natural area is 214.85ha. This beautiful small town has an ancient and contemplative look from the old villas and other architectural works built by the French at the end of the 19th century, at the same time combined with the works of modern style. In the modern era of new buildings built to develop tourism, but still bearing the style of European architecture, this place looks like a miniature Europe. Since we only visited this place on the way back, we only had time to visit and explore a few places located right in the center of town, but couldn't go further to explore this place.
The first place we visited was Truc Lam Tay Thien Zen Monastery, a place oriented towards spiritual culture. Tay Thien is first associated with Buddha's door, it is right in the name of this place. Tay Thien means "Western sky" in Sino-Vietnamese words. The word Tay Thien is used to refer to Thach Ban mountain of Tam Dao mountain range. We only toured the area where the main gate and inside of this tourist area are located. Tay Thien Scenic Area is an ancient Buddhist architectural complex with pagodas, temples, shrines, stone steles... and it bears a strong historical and cultural imprint. Tay Thien is recognized as a historical relic and a special national scenic spot with a complex of pagodas located at the foot of the mountain stretching up to the top of the mountain. If you have time, you should explore this relic by walking from the main gate to the top of the mountain, or now this place has built a cable car to serve visitors with a round-trip price of 240,000 VND/adult, and 160,000 VND/ young children (1m - 1m3), children under 1m are free when riding on the cable. There is also a tram service with the price of 20,000 VND/person/time. With different types of vehicles, you can choose for yourself away to visit and explore this place in your own way that you feel is the most suitable and enjoyable. To visit the whole area of this Zen Monastery of Truc Lam Tay Thien you need at least 1 day to be able to both visit the main gate and explore the top of the mountain.
The next place we went was Tam Dao town located on the top of Tam Dao mountain. After visiting the gate of Truc Lam Tay Thien Zen Monastery, we came to Tam Dao town by a winding and winding pass road about 13km. In this section of road, you have to be very careful in the bends, because the bends here are very sharp, and this road often happens to have accidents because the cars on the pass are going downhill very fast, so you have to be careful drive safely. After a long way up the pass, we reached Tam Dao town. The first thing that surprised us the most is that this is exactly like a real street in Europe because of its architectural works. Along with the cool and fresh climate, when we arrived, this place was covered with a thick layer of clouds. The places we visited are also relatively close to each other, so it is very convenient to explore.
First, we went to Tam Dao town square. This place is very colorful by many different landscapes such as the giant Tam Dao inscription, rows of trees, stone benches, flower gardens... The inscription Tam Dao is very large placed right at the top of the square, stepping up the steps, you can come and take pictures with it. The main campus has a fountain, in the middle of the station is placed a statue. Next, we went to the Stone Church, which was less than 300m away. The church was started construction in 1906, at first, just a house on stilts thatched, until 1937, this church was rebuilt in stone according to the Gothic architectural model. This is one of the four famous stone churches in Vietnam, along with the Sapa stone church that I had the opportunity to introduce in the previous article about Sapa town (Lao Cai). After a long time, this Stone Church still retains its ancient and majestic beauty amidst the majestic mountains. And this is also a symbol of this beautiful little Tam Dao town.
Next, we visit the town's park area, with one side of the road are restaurants, homestays, eateries, motels built-in European style, and the other side is the campus for visitors to go to walk, take pictures. There are many lovely rocking chairs and swings here. You can freely take pictures, at any angle that will give you the best pictures, with the West Street scene blurred by the clouds spreading the path. The next place we went was Quan Gio Tam Dao, a cafe located on the side of a mountain. From here you can see the whole scenery of the mountains and forests and can see the roads and houses located at the foot of the mountain far away. This place is named: the cafe in the cloud because from here looking out in front of the cliff, the clouds are always in a state of floating and playing right in front of your eyes. If you come to Tam Dao, you definitely cannot ignore this cafe with a perfect view, it can't be more beautiful than this. Because we don't have much time, we only managed to visit some famous places in this Tam Dao town.
If you have the opportunity to come here, explore other places such as Tam Dao TV Tower, Heaven Gate, Silver Waterfall, Cau May, Tam Dao National Park... And especially one place you must definitely go there is Tam Dao night market to enjoy the specialties of this place, hot grilled dishes, Lam Rice (rice is cooked in a bamboo tube), grilled sweet potatoes or grilled chicken eggs... If it's cold, the temperature is always below 20 degrees Celsius, the night market is a reasonable choice for foodies.
Thank you for following my post today. Hopefully, through my photos and recommendations, you will know and understand more about this small town called Tam Dao, hope one day you can come here and explore it in the nearest future.
See you in the next post.
Have a nice day! 馃挏
