Nhi Thanh Cave

The way into Nhị Thanh Cave runs level. There are no 30 stone steps to climb, as there are at Tam Thanh Cave. The path follows the Ngọc Tuyền stream, a small stream that flows out of the heart of the mountain. Farther in, it vanishes and runs underground, beneath the floor of the cave.

The cave lies in the same limestone range as Tam Thanh Cave, in Tam Thanh ward of Lạng Sơn. Lạng Sơn is a mountainous province in the northeast of Vietnam. Fewer people know this cave than know Tam Thanh, but it is arguably just as rich in stories.

On the rock wall at the entrance, three Chinese characters are carved into the stone: Nhị Thanh Động. They are a good place to begin, because they explain the name.

Nhị Thanh is not the old name of the cave. It was given in 1779 by the celebrated figure Ngô Thì Sĩ, who discovered the cave and restored it. At that time he was serving as the Đốc trấn, the provincial governor, of Lạng Sơn. Nhị Thanh was his own adopted name, Nhị Thanh Cư Sĩ. By naming the cave after himself, he declared that this place was bound up with his life and his spirit.

But the story of Ngô Thì Sĩ and this cave goes deeper than a name.

From May to July of the lunar year 1779, he had the whole area built and restored. The Tam Giáo Pagoda and four other buildings were all finished in less than three months. On the 28th day of the seventh lunar month that year, he held a festival to open the cave. He invited guests to a banquet and to enjoy the scenery.

The cave holds inscriptions known as Ma Nhai steles. They record that strange things happened on the night of that festival. But this detail belongs to the memory and the written record of its time. It is not an event that can be verified in the modern, scientific sense.

The steles deserve the most attention. There are 20 of them, and they are carved straight into the rock walls of the cave. They praise the scenery of the Lạng region and record the whole work of opening the cave. The most important is Nhị Thanh động phú, written by Ngô Thì Sĩ in 1779. It is a work of literature cut directly into mountain rock, and it has lasted for more than 200 years.

High in the cave, 8 meters up, a portrait of Ngô Thì Sĩ is carved into a niche in the stone. It is a portrait of unusual artistic value, found in no other cave in the area. Below it, local people have set up an altar to him inside the cave. This is how the people of Lạng Sơn honor the man who turned a deserted cave into a living cultural space.

About 100 meters inside, two bridges cross the winding bends of the stream. The sound of trickling water rises from underfoot.

After the second bridge, the space suddenly opens.

The ceiling is much higher here. Light falls through a natural gap in the roof, where Ngô Thì Sĩ had three words carved: Hang Thông Thiên. A waterfall pours down a crack in the rock. The Ngọc Tuyền stream runs underground below the floor. Many people describe this stretch as the most beautiful part of the whole walk.

The waterfall and the old stage nearby have a story of their own. Ngô Thì Sĩ once had a raised ledge of earth made into a stage here, a place for performances on festival days. Much later, during the years when the United States bombed the north, local people used this place for meetings and performances. The cave was a safe shelter from the bombs, and people kept on living and kept on singing inside the limestone mountain.

The Nhị Tam Thanh area was ranked a national monument in 1962. More than 200 years have passed. Light still falls from the opening of Hang Thông Thiên onto the same spot. The waterfall still pours down the crack in the rock. And the 20 steles still quietly keep the words of Ngô Thì Sĩ on the mountain wall, waiting for someone to stand and read.