My guidebook told me that a day trip from Hanoi to the Perfume Pagoda should not be missed. I took an all-day tour that cost $12 US. To reach the Pagoda, we drove 2 hours SW of Hanoi to a small city on a river. Then we entered a number of small, flat-bottom rowboats for a 1 1/2 hour river journey. The river went through an area of rugged, limestone mountains. Finally, we docked and then trekked through the mountains for 6 km to the Pagoda.
When we arrived at the cave, we decended about a hundred steps to arrive at the entrance. The Pagoda is a natural cave in the limestone mountains, which is thought to represent the mouth of a dragon. The Buddhist alter was deep in the cave behind the "mouth" of the dragon.
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