Thach Long Pagoda

Thach Long Pagoda (or Stone Dragon) locates inside a large stone grotto of Thach Long Mountain lying parallel with High Way 3. Driving from Bac Kan city to Thai Nguyen for 19-20 kilometers, tourists in Vietnam travel will see the gate of Thach Long Pagoda on the right.


No one can know when the pagoda began worshipping Buddha, Saint and the Holy Mother. Elders say that it has been for a long time when the peoples of Vi Huong commune took statues to their pagoda called Hoa Son, they found a beautiful natural grotto inside Thach Long Mountain. They immediately took the statutes to the grotto and worshipped them here. Yet not until the 19th century, Thach Long Pagoda was officially worshipped by the peoples. Because the pagoda has special structure and it is also a secrete place, the Ly Dynasty selected the pagoda as a fortress to defeat the Tong enemy.

In the war against French colonialism, the pagoda became a weapon producing place and storage and the peoples stopped worshipping the pagoda. In 1949-1950, Great President Ho Chi Minh visited the pagoda three times and in 1950 he stayed here for one night. In 1954, the pagoda became the Bac Thai Weapon Transport Station. Peace was re-established, the pagoda was given back to the locality and native peoples re-established the pagoda.