The Five Mountains With Caves Inside

Drive south from the beach and the land is flat, house after house, until five grey hills jump up out of nowhere. They are made of marble and limestone, and they sit so close together they look like one family. The people of Da Nang call them Ngu Hanh Son. That means the Five Element Mountains.

Each hill is named after one of the five elements that old belief says the world is built from. Kim is metal. Thuy is water. Moc is wood. Hoa is fire. Tho is earth. A Nguyen emperor gave them these names in the early 1800s, and the names stuck.

Only one of the five is open to visitors. It is Thuy Son, the Water Mountain, the tallest of the group. You climb 156 stone steps to the top, or take a small lift partway if your legs say no. Up there are old pagodas, quiet shrines, and gaps in the rock that open onto the whole coast below.

The best part is hidden inside. A cave called Huyen Khong sits in the belly of the mountain. From the entrance it looks small. Then it opens into a huge dark hall with a giant stone Buddha along one wall. Part of the ceiling fell in long ago, so beams of daylight drop straight through the roof and land on the floor like spotlights. On a bright morning it feels like the mountain is breathing light.

This same cave has a harder story. During the war, fighters hid a field hospital inside these caves, right under the noses of the American air base nearby. The rock kept them safe. Today the only sound is water dripping and people going quiet when they walk in.

Go early, wear shoes that grip, and step off the main path into the caves. Stand in the middle of Huyen Khong when the light comes down, and look up. Five hills of stone, and the best of them is the empty space inside.