The entrance to Ta Phin Cave (Photo: Internet) 

Ta Phin Cave is a national relic and a scenic spot, located in Ta Phin commune, Sa Pa district, Lao Cai province, 12 km away from Sa Pa town to the North. There are two ethnic minority groups Dao and Mong people living in this commune. Ta Phin commune is also home to many research and archeological values, attracting a lot of tourists to come to visit.

Coming to Sa Pa, if tourists want to visit Ta Phin cave, they will go through the town down to Ta Phin village. There is a range of limestone mountain which is 1km away from the office of Ta Phin People’s Committee to the North. It is one branch of Hoang Lien Son mountain. There is a small mountain inside such limestone mountain. At the foot of the mountain, tourists can see a break which created the entrance to the cave with the height of about 5m, width of about 3m that opens a path down to the ground, attracting tourists to come to explore the cave.

Once the journey to explore through the ground has started, tourists will walk a bumpy distance of about 30m in the dark to reach the entrance. From the entrance, there are many narrow paths going to the underground which is able to occupy one person. On the way, there are many cliffs that tourists have to hang on to the rocks then swing themselves up and down. Keep going through those narrow paths, tourists will have chance to see many more narrower paths like a matrix which sometimes even makes the tourists go back to the starting point after going through all the winding and zigzag paths.  

To continue the journey to explore the cave, tourists take the path of the large cliff, where tourists may get the feeling of crossing the cliffs. The path is winding, up and down that has made many forms such as the bulge looks like a woman holding her baby in her arms, some parts look like a bathing fairy, some parts are like the huge plate of sticky rice with the slighly white rough lava, like the coral reef sticked to the rocks, some parts are like the white columns of a house dropping off from the roof, etc. Especially, the widest space on the arch is about 8m high and it’s the best place for stalacties to be formed in the disorganized order, winding, undulating. There are drops of water from the top of the mountain and then seeped to the top of the stalactites, dripping down to the mountain as the rhythm in the virtual space. 

The image of the slight white rough lava dropping down from the roof 

After going farther into the cave, tourists will encounter a large rock lying slightly inclined, on the rock there are the footprints of chicken feet, right on the right top of the rock there are the same identations as the horse’s feet. On the opposite stone cliff, there are French engraved words which can be still readable till now after such a long time of being covered by dirts. There are still many mysterious things about Ta Phin Cave to us that are needed to be protected and preseved.

Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has requested the People’s Committee at all levels where the relics had been recognized and ranked, within the scope of their duties and authority to administer the relics in accordance with the law on cultural heritage.

Ms. Le Hang