Tien Son Cave in Vinh Loc

More than two hundred stone steps climb along the foot of Thung Vịnh Mountain, and at the top they reach the mouth of Tiên Sơn Cave. The cave belongs to the Kim Sơn scenic area, in Vĩnh An commune, in the Vĩnh Lộc area of Thanh Hóa.

This is an old land of the Thanh region. Along the Mã River, limestone mountains rise in strange shapes, and inside them lie caves that not many people have heard of.

The Kim Sơn area was recognized as a national scenic site in 2009. The Thanh Hóa Tourism Portal says it holds three caves side by side: Ngọc Kiều Cave, Kim Sơn Cave and Tiên Sơn Cave. The Đại Nam nhất thống chí gives Kim Sơn Mountain two other names, Biện Mountain and Bông Mountain. This book is an official geography of the country, compiled by court historians of the Nguyễn dynasty. It adds that the mountain range runs from the east side of Hùng Lĩnh Mountain, along the Mã River.

Tiên Sơn is the third of those caves. It sits in Thung Vịnh Mountain, about one kilometer from Kim Sơn Cave if you go north by road. Thanh Hóa Television describes the way up as following the foot of the mountain and passing the stone steps, each one leading deeper into the limestone.

At the cave mouth, a natural block of rock suggests the figure of Quan Thế Âm, the bodhisattva of compassion, seated in meditation on a lotus pedestal. Local people and visitors see this in the shapes of the stalactites and limestone. It is one of the many moments when nature seems to paint its own picture.

Deeper inside, people have given names to the open spaces, following their imagination: the fairy well, the palace of the Water King, the stone zither, the king's bathing pool. These are names, not geology. Each one invites a closer look, and makes a lifeless stalactite seem to have a soul.

Thanh Hóa Television describes a rich display of limestone formations in the cave, and flat slabs of stone more than fifty meters long. Light, the natural color of the rock and the damp air inside the mountain give the cave the feel of the limestone caves of the Thanh region.

The Thanh Hóa Tourism Portal notes that the cliffs of the Kim Sơn area still hold poems in Hán and Nôm characters, carved long ago. Nôm is an old character script for writing Vietnamese. The poems are a literary layer beside the natural landscape, and they show that scholars and writers came here many centuries ago.

Kim Sơn is one of the cave areas of Thanh Hóa that is still quiet. People of long ago climbed more than two hundred stone steps, stood before the same stalactites, and left words on the wall, as if to say that this place deserves to be remembered.

Inside Tiên Sơn Cave, a coolness drifts from the damp rock, and light shimmers on the pale tiers of stalactites. It is easy to see why people of old chose this place to write their poems.