After spending some nice, lazy and relaxing days at the White Sands Beach in Mui Ne, Vietnam, we figured we needed some exercise. And what is better than climbing a mountain when you get restless?! We had read in travel blogs about this Tà Cú (or Takou) Mountain with a big Buddha, so we booked a taxi and headed inland for the mountain.
Well, taxi and taxi, it was actually a rusty ramshackle open jeep! The driving turned out to be a complete nightmare in the crazy noisy traffic of Vietnam! The seats were terribly hard, and the noise from all the honking cars were so bad we couldn`t even talk or think or anything! It was a car ride from hell! 🙁
Well we luckily survived the approximately one hour drive, and were really happy to arrive at the foot of Tà Cú Mountain. There is a cable car up the mountain, taking only 10 minutes. But us being ´Vikings´, of course we had to take the “hard” way up, by foot through the jungle path.
They stopped maintaining the path after they built the cable car, so in some places the jungle have taken over. The path was for the most part easy to walk on and still in good shape, but in some places it was a bit of a struggle to get through the jungle.
After about one hour walk, we finally reached the top! And what a great view!
From the top, there was a road over to the Buddhas. Everything looked very new, but there were hardly any people there except us.
It was a very peaceful place, with lots of birds and lovely lush forest.
On our way over to the Big Buddha, we walked passed several smaller Buddhas.
The white reclining Buddha Thich Ca Nhap Niet Ban (Buddha entering Nirvana) was impressively huge! At 59 meter long and 18 meter high, it is Vietnam’s biggest Buddha! And bright white.
We first thought that it was made out of one gigantic white stone or marble, and were totally blown away by the sight. But then we were told it is actually made of concrete, and painted white. Well, it is still impressive!
After the exhausting climb up, we decided to take the cable car down.
Our climbing trip to Ta Cu mountain Mui Ne and the gigantic Buddha was definitely worth it, and was kind of like a little adventure for us with the walk through the jungle! It was really impressive to see the 59 meters long Buddha in the middle of the jungle. It is even larger than the famous reclining Buddha in Bangkok. That it turned out that the Buddha was not made of marble, but of concrete and painted white was a little bit disappointing, but it is still impressive.