Ta Cu Mountain

During our trip to Mui Ne, we took a day trip to a nearby mountain to see some pagodas and Vietnam's largest laying down Buddha.  The Buddha was built in 1963, but the pagodas were built in the late 1800's.  I tried to find information online about how it was built and materials and what not, but all I could find were the dimensions.

To get to Ta Cu Mountain we hopped into a 1960's Jeep and had a guy drive us to the the base of the mountain.  It was about a 45 minute very bumpy drive.  Both boys fell asleep in my arms on the way there.  When we got there, and the guy turned off the engine, Oliver bolted awake and started clapping.  It was really cute.

Once there, we purchased tickets to take the gondola to the top of the mountain because neither of us were down for a 2 hour hike up a mountain through a jungle.  (I don't think Owen would have enjoyed that.)  When we got to the top, we followed a group of tourists down a path that led to some stairs.  After about 15 flights, we got to the pagodas.  They were impressive!  I was surprised at the number of people who were there for worship, and it was a great opportunity to talk to Owen about how the culture is different here.

We then hike up another 10 or so flights of stairs to find three beautiful statues.  The problem with being a tourist in Vietnam is that you can't read any of the signs--Vietnamese has nothing in common with English.  So I have no idea what those statues were for or what they represented.  I do know that they were breathtaking!

Then we climbed another 15 or so flight of stairs before we got to the Buddha.  This guy was massive!  He is 49 meters long (about 160 feet) and 11 meters tall.  He was laying down, sleeping, and had a very serene expression on his face.

After taking several pictures, and posing in a lot more with a bunch of random tourists, we walked back down the 40 flights of stairs to the gondola to take us back to the foot of the mountain.  We ate lunch at the base surrounded by Vietnamese tourists.  It's so funny to eat in a room full of Vietnamese people because we get stared at the entire time.  The boys especially.  Owen doesn't like the attention very much, but he is coming around.  He's getting so much better at talking to strangers.  Oliver, on the other hand, LOVES the attention, and boy! does he get a lot of it.  People love his blonde hair, and they point at him, and take pictures of him everywhere we go.  He smiles, waves, and blows kisses and makes all the girls giggle like crazy.  Such a ham.

Panoramic view of the Buddha

After lunch, we went back to the Jeep to take the ride back to the resort.  The guy was busy having a smoke, so we were told to wait 10 minutes for him to finish up.  Sounds crazy, right?  After he was finished with his break (even though we had been on the mountain for about 2 hours), we got in the Jeep.  It wouldn't start.  Turn's out that his transmission was busted and gears 1, 2, and 4 were out.  He asked us to get back out of the Jeep (using only gestures because we don't understand Vietnamese and he didn't speak English).  He had a friend tell us to wait 20 minutes, so we wandered around and got some ice cream.  Meanwhile, the guy pulled the floorboards out and opened up the gear box.  He then rigged it so the the floor boards would hold the gear box in place so that he could jam the transmission into third gear.  Derek had to push on the shoddy floor boards with his foot the entire drive back to Mui Ne.  And we couldn't get past third gear, so the trip back took significantly longer than the trip there.  He was supposed to take us into Mui Ne to a restaurant for dinner, but he dropped us on the edge of town saying the restaurant wasn't far (it was).  He just didn't want to have to drive through town because his car couldn't shift.

We ended up taking a cab about 2 miles (which is too far for a 4 year old to walk after climbing up and down 40 flights of stairs) to a place called Oliver's.  The food was okay, and Oliver broke a ramekin.  At least my mojito was good!

It was quite the day.  One I am sure we will remember for a long time.  It was for experiences like this that we packed up our family and moved to the other side of the world.  I'm so glad we went on this little vacation before school started to solidify why we came here.  I think we are going to go to Dalat for our next mini vacation!