Ky Cung Stone Wharf

A boat pushes off from the bank of the Kỳ Cùng River, in the middle of the city center of Lạng Sơn. On board is a party of envoys carrying a state letter. People stand along both banks to see them off. This scene repeated itself at this stone landing for about 900 years, from the 10th century to the end of the 19th.

Today the landing lies on the right bank of the Kỳ Cùng River, near the Kỳ Cùng Bridge. It stands in the Vĩnh Trại area of Lạng Sơn. Lạng Sơn is a mountainous province in the northeast of Vietnam. The landing has an old name in Chinese characters, Kỳ Cùng Thạch Độ. Here the diplomatic missions of Vietnam and China stopped, performed a rite, and began or ended their journey across the river. Above the landing stands the Kỳ Cùng Temple, where the envoys held their ceremony. Below it is the stone landing where they boarded the boats.

Through its history, Lạng Sơn was the gateway for diplomacy between Đại Việt and China. Đại Việt is an old name for Vietnam. Every envoy party going or coming passed through here. The landing was also tied to the trade of the administrative seat of Lạng Sơn. One can picture a busy river scene: boats loaded with goods, boats carrying envoys, and the sound of water and voices mixing on the stone bank.

Around the year 1778, Ngô Thì Sĩ took up his post as governor of Lạng Sơn. He recorded the eight beautiful scenes of Trấn doanh and called them Trấn doanh bát cảnh. One of them was Kỳ Cùng Thạch Độ, this very landing. So more than 200 years ago, a leading scholar of his time named the landing among the eight finest sights of the whole region. Not many people know this when they stand here.

Ngô Thì Sĩ was an official, but also a writer, a historian and the author of many important works on the history and geography of Vietnam in the 18th century. By placing the landing on his list of eight, he showed that the place held more than the value of trade and diplomacy. It also had a beauty strong enough to stand beside the other fine sights of the Lạng Sơn region.

Today the site is ranked as a national monument, and it has been since 1993. The local authorities have rebuilt a stone stele for the monument and set it beside the Thành Pagoda. The pagoda's formal name is Diên Khánh Tự.

The old landing is also linked to the image of a stone dog, used to moor boats. This unusual figure was once lost, and it is now being studied for restoration, as a way of keeping alive the memory of the envoys' boats of long ago.

Standing at the landing today, a visitor can look up to the temple above, look out to the bridge across the river, and hear the water flowing below. The city has changed a great deal, but the river is still here. For anyone who knows the history, this small landing is one of the most special places in the Lạng Sơn region. It once saw some of the most important diplomatic meetings between two neighboring countries.