Mount Ta Ku

30 kilometers south of Fantiet is the sacred mountain Ta Ku. The road to it passes through the plantations of one of the most bizarre Vietnamese fruits - "dragon heart".

In the XVIII century, a pagoda was built on Mount Ta Ku in honor of the salvation of the emperor’s wife by a Buddhist monk. Later, the pagoda became part of a whole Buddhist temple complex with monastic cells, statues and burials of Buddhist saints. In the sixties of the XX century, the largest sculptural image of the reclining Buddha in Vietnam appeared here, 49 m long and 11 m high.

The size of the statue is strictly defined: the number 49 symbolizes the number of steps to self-discovery, and the number 11 is the number of steps of Buddhism. The huge statue is made of snow-white stone. The posture in which the Buddha is depicted is far from accidental: the figure of the reclining Buddha is usually associated with his death, for Buddhists this event is equal to the achievement of complete and final nirvana.

Since the creation of the statue, this place has become a center of pilgrimage. Until 2002, climbing Ta Ku was only possible on foot. Today, the cable car from the foot of the mountain will deliver tourists here in just a few minutes.