Huong Pagoda in Son La

Ok

Ok

Very nice place to go

The cave is beautiful! Others? Not so special. Kinda lame.

The Perfume Pagoda (Vietnamese: Chùa Hương, Chữ Hán: 香寺is a vast complex of Buddhist temples and shrines built into the limestone Hương Tích mountains. It is the site of a religious festival which draws large numbers of pilgrims from across Vietnam.[1] The centre of the Hương Temple lies in Hương Sơn Commune, Mỹ Đức District, former Hà Tây Province (now Hanoi). The centre of this complex is the Perfume Temple, also known as Chùa Trong (Inner Temple), located in Hương Tích Cave.[2]

The pagoda is beautiful, the Yen river is beautiful. There is lot of food. The car parking is available. The boat driver is frendly. It is easy to go there through 21B road. But the service is bad. The ticket counter is not at the gate, it is somewhere on the road, about 3 km back from the entrance gate. You will find it is hardly to get the boat only with the ticket. Tourism have to pay more money to have boat. Some local have the action of threaten the boat driver if they allowed you to reach the boat before pay the extra money. With the experience like that, I will not go there again if they dont change they way of service. I hope they will change in the future like Trangan.

A spiritual place turned into fair/flea market with millions of locals selling you an array of random, cheesy, useless things. They use loud speakers to advertise. They rent out load speakers on the rivers so people can sing karaoke on the boat. The only vegan restaurant in this "spiritual" place actually serves meat dishes. Consumerism at its finest.

I cant really recommend this to tourists. The area is nice with trees, but I cant say its a must see compared to other sights in Vietnam. The walk up was full of dilapidated stalls. Hawkers caught wild animals and put up signs asking tourists to pay money to set the animal free which is just insane. The boats are crazy disorganized and pack the entire area which looks bad, not to mention the litter in the water which can also be seen on the row to and from the mainland. As mentioned in many other posts, the rowers go insane even when given a decent tip. A man was also standing near the end and tried to coerce us into paying a bigger tip. A tourism department needs to sort this place out. This end to the trip made it a bad memory. The Ninh Binh boat trip was great because its run well and tourists are told not to tip the rowers which works well because it means that the people there cant take advantage of the tourists. I think this place desperately needs a similar system in place because its absolutely disgraceful

Spiritual Place , Many Visitor , Beautiful View..First you will go a boat ride about 1 hrs and then walk up to the cable car to the top temple cave . You will walk down few steps in to the cave . It seem it a yearly pilgrimage for the locals

Amazing experience. Take the time you need to get to the top and back, but also make time for the temple and shrine. The boat ride may have been the best part.

Nice and here is on the way to pagodas. We came here by boat and change to gondola 🚠

Perfect place to go for a day trip from Hanoi. About 60~65km far.Full of natural beauty, lots of small hills and pagoda. I like the boat ride which is around 40~60 minutes (one way).Can go by motorcycle or even by city bus. By city bus take around 2.2 hours and ticket 9k VND. The entrance fee is 80k VND and the boat ticket is 50k VND with return. The cable car one way ticket is 120k VND with return its 180k VND.

Boat riding is the best part of the journey in my personal opinions.

Very beautiful palace, but terrible service by making money in every situation

A holy pagoda nearby Hanoi city. To go there, it takes 1 hour boating along a river and one hour back. It’s also involves hiking and cables cap if you cannot go up hiking too much by yourself. Avoid visiting here after Tet holiday from February to March, coz so many local people visit here for wishing and praying luck, health, prosperity for theirs families. Should go in Autumn

What an outstanding place this is. Am purely humbled to have been there and seen the majesty of this place. Was a little appalled at the commercial nature of the place. Not only for things like kids toys, but buying your temple offering/sacrifice at the gates?

Excellent place. Couple of hours drive from Ha Noi. We have to reach in a boat. Beautiful geological structure. The temple is beautiful. Cool and clean. One must behave properly as it is a sacred temple. One should avoid revealing clothes. Good day long trip.

Beautiful and old sightseeing, especialy the cave. People round here is not good. They keep on bothering you to use their services (use their boat, buy their food...)

Worth the effort? Not sure. Very beautiful. Cave really quite disappointing. Hassle for big tip from boat people annoying. Food really not worth the dollar. Long day.

Beautiful scenery!!! Would love to visit this place again.

Like most people visiting the Perfume Pagoda, I came out here as part of a tour. The tour included a slow-paced boat ride to the main site, where youre given the option to either climb up all the way to the Pagoda, of take a cable-car up. Despite being given the choice though, the time allotted definitely wouldnt have been enough to both hike up, visit the temple, and then hike back down. I opted to take the cable car up, and then hike down, and just barely made it for the time cut-off. So if youre doing this as part of a tour like I did, keep that in mind.As for the temple itself, it was quite neat. Once you reach the top of the mountain (either by hiking or cable car), you actually need to take a decent flight of steps down into the cave. The cave was quite nice, with the stalagmites and stalactites everywhere in the cave. Parts of it are quite slippery, so you need to watch your footing.Considering the trek/ride up though, there wasnt really that much to see. The other travelers on the tour with me agreed with me that the other temple site at the bottom of the mountain (Thien Tru Pagoda I believewas actually much more beautiful, with an incredible arrangement of temples and really beautiful architecture. So if you are coming to see the Perfume Pagoda, make sure you have a look around the Thien Tru site as well.One thing to note, make sure you visit this site during off-peak season. If you try to come during peak season youll be among the mass hoards of Vietnamese pilgrims who come here to pay respects, so better to come off-season when that wont be the case.

It is one of the most famous worship place for Vietnamese. Recommended to wasting your time if you have nothing to do to reach the place by boat. It will take about one and half hour. Staying in the boat and enjoy the nature and nice view along the river which is an old style to come to this place. But if hurry, there is the road way also reaches to this place.

still new places and good view to visit.

Amazing! Very beautiful to visit. You can go hiking up the mountain. As said there are lots of shops, however most of them were closed when I visited the mountain. Taking cable car back gives you a beautiful view over the mountains. Perfume Pagoda itself is amazing!

A beautiful boat ride with lushy mountains and lotus farms around is the pre journey to this place. There is an option to reach to the cave either using a cable car or trek to reach atop. The trek will take about an hour . Then comes a beautiful the cave where the Pagoda of the lady Buddha is present. One of the most beautiful Pagoda in Vietnam and definitely worth a Visit.

Unique experience on boat ride to the cave. Was told that Feb to April will be high season. Currently in Nov less crowd. Be prepared to bring small change for cable car, tips for boatman and toiet entry.

Spectacular. One of my best memories in Vietnam.There was never a dull moment the entire day. We started out in boats, and headed up river to the temple. It was raining the day we went, but was beautiful nonetheless.Spectacular views; really an experience out of this world.Cafeteria/restaurant is massive and open-air.Great day!

An enjoyable excursion with travelling in boat ridden by traditional Hanoi way

Not worth the effort if youve been to other temple and pagoda complexes in Vietnam. The cave was really awesome, but thats it.

Beautiful and quiet place in August, but it was pretty hot over here. Everything was pretty good, only one thing in the end that made us a bit uncomfortable. My group already decided to give some tips to the boat rower when we reached the river bank, but when we were almost there she asked for tips as she said everyone gives tips to the boat rower over here, we had a bit disappointment then. And when we got out of the boat and already gave her tips, she ASKED FOR MORE TIPS. Thats really impolite of her to ask for tips not to mention asking for more when shes already got more than what she deserved. And its not only one boat rower asks for tips, there are more of them.

Its sll for tourists. Nothing authentic. The cave is nice

Nice and peaceful agoda, but dont go at hight season, will always full people

Wonderful visit with a small grouo and a very nice guide

Its beautiful and all but the hike/pilgrimage isnt easy. Plus I think all the stuff tourists usually do here is kinda disrespectful as it is a sacred site. There will be people with cameras who will offer to take your picture, theyll follow you around the entire time and charge you a lot, so best make sure you tell them exactly how long you want their services if you do decide to hire them.

Great location but heaps of steps.....Only negative is greedy boat operators....offered rip of US50 AND SHE demanded more

Nice to be here one day visiting

The view is beautiful , but ferryman is not good. She took me more 100 000đ for 2 people ( I paid tour price before )

Be careful about cheaters which will try to get big money from you. If you want to go by boat go to office which is next to the river and buy tickets. Dont take boats from private people. Cost of a boat is about 350 000 dong.

It was better 10 years ago. Now it is polluted with all of the noisy boats..

Too crowded.NOT FOR TOURISTS!!! DONT COME HERE. DO NOT COME HERE FOR SIGHTSEEINGThis place is for pilgrimage only

Nature beautiful landscape pretty! Especially the majestic mountain landscape! Caves of the beauty of the stomach! Especially the way to the temple through the river water rush! I like here !!

good

the beautiful and peace place but too many shops and inns

All the shop on the way to go up Huong Pagoda. No view, no fresh air. But nice view on boat from Trinh Temple to Thien Tru.

It’s beautiful and wonderful temple. You can get there by boat.

Come here in lunar New Year especially. To feel the religious fanaticism of Vietnamese.

Over crowded over commercialised, all its natural beauty destroyed by greed. Waste of a day

Good place !

The pagoda itself is very nice to visit. I note that the ticket for the park is supposed to cost VND 80k but they will try to rip you off, also the boats tour need to be paid where they will equaly try to overcharge (max. VND 200k for return). In addition the cable car is another VND 160k per person return.

I personally expected to see a complex of Buddhist temples similar to Bai Dinh Pagoda. BUT NO! Only Thien Tru Temple and Huong Tich in a cave might be of somewhat interested if you have already visited everything and just have spare days of your trip. It is really nothing special at the times when there is no festival. If you are going to Huong Tich by stairs you wont see nature and views at all because everything is obstructed and blocked with stands where people are selling things. By the way, the price for drinking water is three to five times higher than anywhere else. But the most dreadful and hideous is that local bargainers catch birds, squirrels, snakes, and other anymals and offer you to buy these anymals to let them free!!! NO COMMENTS... Just decide what you REALLY want to see in Vietnam. O yeah, just forgot to mention - the same bargainers catch turtles from the river, pigeons and offer this as a food at their cafes killing those animals by pouring boiling water on them.