TAY NINH – Besides visiting the sacred pagoda on Ba Den mountain, visitors can visit Tay Ninh holy temple, Dau Tieng lake, or forest vineyard.
Sunny weather, near Saigon, many attractive attractions are the reasons why tourists choose this Southeast region for short spring travel.
Suitable time
From December to April, Tay Ninh is in the dry season, it is sunny but not too hot, convenient for sightseeing because most of the attractive local destinations are outdoors.
Throughout January is also the time to hold the spring festival on Ba Den mountain, attracting thousands of visitors to worship for good luck every year. The festival officially takes place on the night of January 18th and 19th, visitors to the temple can go before or after these two days to avoid overcrowding.
CONVENIENT MOVEMENT AND ACCOMMODATION
Tay Ninh is about 100 km from Ho Chi Minh City, travel time in 2-3 hours depending on the means. From An Suong bus station or Tan Son Nhat airport (Ho Chi Minh City), bus to the city center. Tay Ninh one way costs 70,000 – 140,000 VND. After that, you can go to the attractions by taxi, or rent a motorbike for 100,000 – 180,000 VND per unit. Car, personal motorbike is the most flexible means of transportation.
Hotels and motels in the city center are convenient for eating and drinking. In addition, near Ba Den mountain, there are also accommodation facilities for guests to go early in the morning. Room rates in Tay Ninh per night are from 200,000 VND to over one million VND.
MULTIPLAYER DESTINATION
Tay Ninh stands out with many spiritual and natural attractions, such as Ba Den mountain, Cao Dai sanctuary, Dau Tieng lake, a hundred-year-old house, vineyard …
Mrs. Black Mountain
The mountain is considered “the roof of the South” with an altitude of 986 m, is also one of the famous spiritual tourist destinations in the South.
If you admire all the temples on the mountain, visitors will go to Ba Den Pagoda (Linh Son Tien Thach Tu), Hang Pagoda (Linh Son Long Chau), Linh Son Hoa Dong Pagoda, Linh Son Phuoc Trung Pagoda, Quan Am Pagoda. In particular, Ba Den pagoda, over 300 years old, is widely recited for its sacredness, and is a special pilgrimage site in the beginning of the year. Pilgrims to the pagoda and to Ba Temple are served vegetarian rice for free on the occasion of January’s holidays.
To go up the mountain, most visitors choose to move by cable car. Three cable car stations are Ba Den station, Chua Hang station, Van Son station, which is not only a place to transfer passengers to tourist attractions on the mountain, but also a place to take beautiful photos that attracts many tourists’ lenses.
Round trip cable car ticket price is 250,000 VND / adult, 150,000 VND / child (high 1 – 1.4m). In addition, each guest must buy an additional entrance ticket for adults at the price of 16,000 VND, 8,000 VND for children (1 – 1.4m high) and people over 60 years old, people with severe disabilities.
Currently, Van Son cable line to the top of the mountain operates at 7:45 – 16:00 a week, 7:00 – 17:00 Saturday and Sunday. The cable line from Chua Hang to Chua Ba operates from 7:00 am – 5:00 pm a week, 6 am – 6 pm Saturday and 6 am – 17 pm Sunday.
Tay Ninh Holy See
The Holy See is about 5 km from Tay Ninh City, attracting not only religious followers but also many domestic and international tourists to visit by its unique architecture. At 0am, 6am, 12am, 6pm every day, the white ao dai of Cao Dai men and women covers the Holy See. Non-visitors can watch the ceremony from the door. Visitors inside the building must leave shoes outside the door, do not go through the main door, men go through the right door and women go to the left door.
In January, the Holy See celebrates the Feast of the Blessed One on the 9th. If this day comes close, visitors will have the opportunity to watch the traditional dance and music performances of the Cao Dai devotees.
Thien Lam Pagoda
During the pilgrimage, visitors should not miss the temple which is more than 100 years old, located in Long Thanh Trung commune, Hoa Thanh district. Thien Lam Pagoda (also known as Go Ken Pagoda), houses two giant Buddha statues, the 25-meter-high Bodhisattva statue standing on a 7-meter-high dragon and a 25-meter-long Nirvana Buddha statue.
The temple has an airy, green space, suitable for elderly guests or those who are afraid of crowds to admire Ba Den mountain.
Dau Tieng Lake
This is the largest artificial freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, the lake part of Tay Ninh is about 20 km from the city center.
This place is a familiar picnic spot for many tourists, during the day or overnight, watching the sunset, fishing, SUP, especially in the dry season. This attraction does not charge, visitors need to keep the general hygiene here.
Forest vineyard
Near the foot of Ba Den mountain, Nguyen Van Thong’s private vineyard (Phan commune, Duong Minh Chau district) is open to visitors, enjoying free fruit and grape juice. The fruits here belong to the forest grapes, the small ones grow in eye-catching bunches of wrong. Guests can buy wine and grape honey processed in the garden, priced at 100,000 – 150,000 VND per bottle.
The ancient house of Nguyen Tam Kien
To explore the old features in the middle of the city, visit the house over a hundred years old , located at 39 Phan Chau Trinh Street. The house was built by Mr. Nguyen Van Kien, Governor of the French colonial era, built-in 1894 until now still retains the original architecture and ancient objects. This place is for visitors to take pictures for free.
Fruit garden
Fruit growers in Go Dau district such as Go Chua, Bau Don, Ut Phuong began to have a variety of ripe fruits from around the end of February. Most gardens allow visitors to visit free of charge, with a fee to buy fruit. Visitors can stop at the garden for lunch, pick fruit to use on site or buy.
Ancient Tower of Binh Thanh
The tower was discovered in 1886, determined to be a thousand years old, located in Binh Thanh commune (Trang Bang district). This is one of the rare ancient towers that still exists almost intact, typical for the architecture of the Oc Eo culture in the South.
The rubber forest changing leaves in Tay Ninh at the end of December to March every year is also a suggestion for beautiful photo spots for tourists.
Before the outbreak of Covid-19, the Moc Bai border gate was the shopping address for duty-free goods, the gateway to Cambodia by land for many Vietnamese tourists. Currently, tourism activities here are suspended.
DELICIOUS IT IS EASY TO FIND
Tay Ninh is famous for its dew-drying rice paper, Trang Bang soup cake, silk beef, pomelo spring rolls, shrimp salt, snail, sour sauce, mountain lizard, and Cao Dai vegetarian dishes.
In particular, the Trang Bang bakery shop attracts visitors concentrated on Nguyen Van Rop Street (Trang Bang town). Nam Dung, Ut Hue, Hoang Minh restaurants are some of the famous places to enjoy this dish.
Coming to Loc Du hamlet (Trang Bang town), visitors can ask people to come to the workshops to make rice paper rolls to dry the dew , a profession recognized as a national intangible cultural heritage. The cake has plasticity, salty taste, can be used directly without dipping in water or crispy, often bought by customers or as gifts.
Wanting to try the famous beef in this land, Nam Sanh and Nhat Truong restaurants in the city center are the addresses recommended by many diners, with prices ranging from 50,000 to 200,000 VND.
Tay Ninh market is the place to sell a variety of salt, shrimp , rice paper and sour sauce . You can buy these specialties as gifts at affordable prices, about 5,000 VND – 40,000 VND per item.
Grapefruit spring rolls are a unique local delicacy that vegetarians can use because the ingredients are all plant-based such as grapefruit peel, star fruit, chilli, papaya. Want to buy pomelo rolls you should go to Hiep Thanh district, where there is more to buy and prepare.
In addition, the Cao Dai vegetarian dishes, snails, mountain lizards … visitors can find food in the city center.
SCHEDULE SCHEDULE
Since the attractions are far from each other, visitors should follow a specific itinerary for convenient transportation. If you take a bus, you rent a motorbike in Tay Ninh city and then continue to the attractions. Below is a suggested itinerary for two days of exploration.
Day 1: During the spring tour, you should visit the temple first to pray for peace, good luck for the whole new year and the trip. After visiting the mountain, visit the forest vineyard in Phan commune (Duong Minh Chau district), 5 km from the entrance to the foot of the mountain to rest. In the afternoon, you should visit a hundred-year-old house, then go to Tay Ninh market to buy specialties.
Day 2: Morning is a good time to visit the Holy See, when it is not too hot. The fruit gardens in Go Dau are nearly 30km from the Holy See, visitors should come here to stop for lunch. If traveling by private vehicle, from the fruit garden you should go straight to Trang Bang to eat banh canh, buy rice paper, then go straight to Ho Chi Minh City.
The bus from Tay Ninh to Ho Chi Minh City usually has the last one at 6 pm.
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