As the place where the first coat of arms of the Dien Bien Phu campaign was placed and known by the locals as “Mr Giap” cave, but Tham Pua cave is still little known by many people when visiting the place “the famous five continents, shocking” this earth”.
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| Tham Pua Cave |
After more than 400km along Highway 6 from Hanoi and passing Pha Din Pass – one of the four great peaks of Vietnam – we arrived at Dien Bien, the once glorious land of our fathers with the Dien Bien Phu victory. celebrated. According to the schedule, the group also visited famous landmarks: A1 Hill, General De-Cat Tunnel, Muong Thanh field…
But it feels like I’ve forgotten something.
Looking through the historical lines of the Dien Bien Phu campaign, we came across a detail that perhaps few people noticed: “Thâm Pua (also known as Tham Bang) – where local people discovered a Some types of axes, pestles to crush stone food, some fossilized animal bones, is also the place where the first headquarters of the Dien Bien Phu campaign was located. Here, on January 14, 1954, an important and decisive conference took place for the historic Dien Bien Phu campaign.
Learn more to know that Tham Pua is a cave located at the foot of Pu Hong Cay limestone mountain, in the territory of Ban Po, Chieng Sinh commune, Tuan Giao district, Dien Bien. To get here, from km15 Tuan Giao, you have to ask many times and it is very difficult to find the way to go into the cave after a few times of getting lost.
The road is extremely small and narrow, one side is a steep slope, many landslides are quite dangerous but also extremely beautiful with the green hills of the sticky rice fields.
| The green hills and sticky rice fields |
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| Tham Pua cave door seen from afar |
| The mountains and forests overlap with the green rice-colored valleys seen from the entrance of Tham Pua cave |
After a long and arduous journey, everyone finally found the cave entrance. Appearing in front of everyone’s eyes is a majestic, magnificent but still wild beauty. In the distance, right at the top of the cave, there are strong clouds of clouds stabbing straight into the sky, as if showing the indomitable spirit and will of the people here.
Crossing corn fields, meeting ethnic girls who are working hard in the fields greet guests with affectionate smiles. Do you ask if the group “goes to “Mr. Giap” cave?”. Through a brief conversation with the mountain girls, we learned that the people here still call Tham Pua cave “ong Giap” – General Vo Nguyen Giap – the national hero has just passed away to eternity. at the age of 103.
For them, through the stories of the old people in the village, the General is a very great person, and the name of the cave “Mr. Giap” is therefore also given by the people here as a way to pay respect and know. Deep gratitude to the hero of the nation.
The people of Ban Po said that sometimes people enter the cave, the most recent group is on the occasion of Tet holiday, and mainly locals come in to trap birds.
Continuing to follow the stone steps built during the war, people had a hard time climbing into the cave because the path was obscured by trees. But not to disappoint the expectations of visitors from afar, right from the entrance of the cave, we encountered beautiful and radiant forest flowers to welcome.
From the entrance of the cave, one can see around the familiar colors of the northern mountains. The majestic mountains and forests have the same message stretching as far as the eyes, below are the green valleys with the new color of rice, the golden sunshine in the fields…
| Patches of moss covered the cliffs |
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| Outside view through the cave door |
The cave has natural beauty and is still quite intact, the cave is wide, in many places nearly 10m high. The deeper you go inside, the more large, flat stones you will encounter like a moss-covered tabletop.
Continuing to go, appearing in front of everyone’s eyes are cliffs, stone ceilings, stalagmites, stalactites shaped like beautiful snakes, dragons and phoenixes…
Going deeper, next to the cave, there is also an unknown altar that seems to have been left unattended for a long time. The light at this point has also dimmed and it is difficult to see the surroundings.
Because we did not prepare carefully in advance due to lack of information, after going a little more inside, we did not dare to take the risk to continue and had to end the journey to explore the cave in regret. But the way back seems to be closer to the overflowing joy of discovering a special relic in the heroic land of Dien Bien.
Tham Pua, hopefully one day this place will no longer be forgotten…
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| One slab has the shape of a snake’s mouth in the cave |
| A well deep in the cave |
Source: Collected internet.