Paradise Cave (Dong Thien Duong or Thien Duong Cave) is a beautiful place in Phong Nha – Ke Bang National Park, Quang Binh Province, Vietnam, that I have discovered 3 times with my guests and my family. I admire its beauty considered as the most magnificent and fanciful wonder in the world.
Stalactites in the cave are extremely diverse and rich in geological value as well as form. They have different images similar to cultural symbols: Buddha, Lady Buddha, Roong House on stilts, or terraced fields.
To support you to have a wonderful journey to “the heaven in the land”, I would like to share with you about the experience to explore the Paradise Cave.
- Where is Paradise Cave?
- When is the best time to visit Paradise Cave?
- How to get to the Paradise Cave in Quang Binh
- Explore Thien Duong cave
- Ticket price for discovering Paradise Cave
- What and where to eat when exploring Dong Thien Duong
- Accommodation to stay when visiting Thien Duong Cave
- Items to bring
Where is Paradise Cave in the map?
The correct of the amazing Paradise Cave is in Son Trach Commune, Bo Trach District, Quang Binh Province, Vietnam. This is a wonder and the most magnificent masterpiece in the world.
Thien Duong cave has a length of over 31km, an average width of 30-100m, the widest place up to 150m and a height of about 60-80m, has been rated as the longest dry cave in Asia.
This cave is one of the must-see sites when you come to Dong Hoi City, Quang Binh Province, Vietnam.
When is the best time to visit Paradise Cave?
When you plan to visit Thien Duong Cave, you may want to know about the weather here to choose the ideal time. The first thing is to learn that Quang Binh has two distinct seasons: rainy season and dry season.
Dry seasons starts from March to September. In which, March and April are the best time to visit the Paradise Cave. It is because, at this time, the temperature is quite cool and pleasant; it is not flooded in the cave. The temperature of the cave is only about 18-22 degrees Celsius, which is lower than outside.
The rainy season begins from October to the end of February of the next year. It often rains causing wet environment, which makes difficult to explore the caves. However, the activities of discovery to Thien Duong Cave still happen as usual, unless the announcement of the government when it gets flood or storms.
>> You may like a tour to visit tourist places in Quang Binh including Paradise Cave.
How to get to Paradise Cave in Quang Binh
To go to Thien Duong Cave, most guests come to Dong Hoi City, Quang Binh Province, and then transfer to the cave. This is the most convenient way to explore Dong Thien Duong.
1. Arrive in Dong Hoi City, Quang Binh
Frequently, tourists will travel to Quang Binh with 3 options:
Choose buses to come to Dong Hoi:
If you go from Hanoi, the buses depart from Hanoi at 6pm to Quang Binh at 4am of the next morning. A fare costs from 200,000 VND – 350,000 VND per person. You can choose some of the following:
- Co Huong Bus in Hanoi: 0941.297.666 – 0941.297.888 – in Dong Hoi: 0941.090.666
- Hung Thanh Bus: 0232.3851.995 – 0232.3851.996
- Hung Long Bus, in Hanoi: 0963.388.388 / 0232.3851.996 – in Dong Hoi: 02323.899899 / 0232.3779.779
- Ha Quang Bus, in Hanoi: 096.7778.772 – 096.7778.770 – in Dong Hoi: 0984.229.422.
If you depart from Da Nang to Quang Binh: Fares range from VND 125,000 to VND 200,000. You can choose one of the following buses:
- Hai Ha Bus: 0905,735,579 – 0905,619,619
- Hanh Luyen Bus: 0985.989.005 – 0985.898.005
- Car Trung Tin: 0905.416.681 – 0905.122.681
If you travel from Hoi An to Dong Hoi, you can use buses from Hoi An to Hue, then you will use another one from Hue to Dong Hoi. If you want to get more convenience with the door-to-door service, you can book a private car to transfer from Hoi An to Dong Hoi City through travel agencies.
Buses Hoi An to Hue costs from 90,000VND – 250,000VND
- Hanh Café (in Hoi An) 0235 3864 609
- Hoang Duc Van (in Hue) 0888317575
- Queen Café Bus (in Hoi An) 0235 3911 881
A private car from Hoi An to Hue, it costs from 59USD for 2 guests.
Buses from Hue to Dong Hoi have the price from 150,000VND – 250,000VND.
- Hoang Long (in Hue Bus Station – South Station): 02343 854 854
- Bao Yen Bus (in Hue Bus Station – South Station): 02343 888 555
- TK Bus (Trekking Travel Bus) (in Hue): 02343 829 839
A private car from Hue to Dong Hoi, the rate is from 89USD for 2 guests.
Tips: Bus travel to Dong Hoi City, Quang Binh is for guests with a low budget because it is not an excellent quality to travel with this vehicle. To get a more comfortable transfer, tourists should choose a private car, trains, or airplanes.
Select a train
Many visitors choose a train to move for safety, reasonable price, and convenience. If traveling from Hanoi, the bed ticket price is around VND 500,000 – VND 700.00, the seat price is around VND 309,000.
Travel from Hue or Da Nang City to Dong Hoi has price from 250,000VND – 350,000VND.
You can come directly to the train station in each city to buy train tickets. To make sure the ticket still available, you can check the ticket online with the website of Vietnam trains. https://dsvn.vn
Travel by the plane
You should check tickets for direct flights from Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City to Dong Hoi with three airlines: Vietjetair, Jetstar and Vietnam Airline. Sometimes, you can get a low price of airline tickets. This will save you a lot of time to move from Saigon or Hanoi to Dong Hoi.
2. From Dong Hoi to Thien Duong Cave
Once, you come to Dong Hoi, Quang Binh, and you are wondering how to go to the Paradise Cave? When you stay in Dong Hoi, it is effortless to move to Thien Duong Cave, so do not worry! To go from Dong Hoi, you can choose the following ways:
Option 1: Rent a car
You want to be able to quickly catch a taxi or rent a car, and just sit and relax around 60 minutes you will come to the Paradise Cave. However, this option is quite expensive; Vietnamdrive recommends for guests who do not have a lot of time and a bigger budget for traveling.
Option 2: Use motorbikes to go
If you like to explore sightseeing along the way and the adventure travel, you can hire motorbikes to drive. And you should know that traffic in Vietnam is hard, drive with your best care. Price is quite low about 150,000VND/vehicle/day, not including gasoline, so you need to fill it yourself. But, luckily, the owners often keep a little petrol, just enough to drive to the near gasoline station.
There are many places of motorbike rental, but we would like to show you some popular sites:
- Tung specializes in motorbike rental in Quang Binh, tel: 0978 211 325, address: 44 Hoang Dieu street (close to Dong Hoi station)
- Thu, tel: 0978 211 325 – cute and enthusiastic, with new motorbikes.
- Lam, tel: 091 596 04 81, address: 60 Nguyen Du, Dong My, Dong Hoi City, Quang Binh
Drive along the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the fork to turn into the way to go forward Phong Nha – Ke Bang. You run a long distance to Dong Duong intersection, turn left towards the direction of Thien Duong cave and go straight.
We just recommend you use a motorbike when you are familiar with traffic and driving skills in Vietnam.
Exploring Paradise Cave
Starting from the parking lot
When going to the parking, 5,000VND for motorbike and from 15,000VND to 20,000VND for a car to stop here. Many coffee and souvenir shops around the parking lot are good to rest and sip a cup of coffee to revive the energy before the expedition. You can see beautiful scenery, blue sky, clouds drifting away, primitive trees, pleasant fresh air, and also chirping birds here.
Next, you will come to the ticketing area where you buy tickets to enter the limited location of the way to Thien Duong.
After checking tickets and going through the gate, you will have two choices to come to the foot of the mount where you have to climb up to the mouth of the Paradise Cave on the high mountain.
- Using an electric car to move for a distance.
- Walking along the path through the forest to see nature and enjoy the fresh air.
Please note that this distance is around 1.5km, takes 20 minutes to walk. The scenery along the way is good, but it’s hard to walk under the high temperature, then you climb up the steps after this. Vietnamdrive suggests buying tickets for electricity car to move easier and faster.
When traveling to the bottom of the mountain, we start going up. There are also two ways to come up: the road with steps on the left is shorter, but harder; and the path without steps on the right is more prolonged and zigzag. We like to choose the long snaky one to move up, but go back on the way with steps.
Resting stop at the door of Thien Duong Cave
Up to the area of the Paradise Cave, there is a resting stop before coming inside the cave. We strongly advise you to relax around 10 minutes to help your body reduce the hot temperature after walking up. Ice cream is terrific here to make you fresh and get a little energy to visit the cave.
Doorway to Thien Duong Cave
The narrow entrance only has a couple of people to go through. A nearly vertical slit leads you into another world with countless incredible stalactites and stalagmites.
Inside the Paradise Cave
With cool air inside the cave, you will feel extremely comfortable. Walking along with the wooden staircase system of 1km, you will admire the magnificent beauty that appears thanks to the colorful lights. All of these make you feel here is a fairyland and the real paradise on the land.
Right from the entrance, go down a narrow slope about 15 m in length, there is a large space covered with a system of extremely spectacular stalagmites and stalactites that nature presents. Standing in the cave and looking back the slope, visitors can admire its sophisticated structure, with many big stalactites nuts. The two sides have many traces slope collapsed, sprawling stalactite columns as though undergoing a huge tectonic.
Going inside the cave, stalactites with many different shapes make us think of images such as rabbit, prey-catching a lion, Lady Buddha, “Happiness – Good Luck – Longevity” – 3 typical gods in Vietnamese culture, imperial garden and galaxy. Stalactites and stalagmites system with monochromatic light enhances more and more the cave’s magical natural beauty.
Especially, inside the cave, there are stalactites, stalagmites with images symbolizing cultures of Vietnam’s regions such as the Highlands communal house – Rong House, northwest terraced field, small ponds, and Cham temple.
Deeply in the cave, the stalactites hang down from the top of the cave, sparkling like the curtain in a fairy room, or heaven garden. They sprout iridescent ridges like the galaxy or chasms and fuzzy like converging Fairies Palace.
To form these masterpieces, each stalactite is the result of precipitation of raindrops after absorbing through rock clefts for millions of years. Tiny raindrops along with iron, and limestone still continue to hang down silently from the top to floor, creating small stalagmites looking brittle, fresh and colorful ones.
A place you should not miss when visiting Paradise cave is the masterpiece “A sleeping pillow-hugging girl” at the last destination. This masterpiece is drawn with rock ridge by nature and highly lies on the cave’s wall.
Thien Duong Cave was named “Royal Palace in the Earth” with records:
- The longest dry cave in Asia
- The cave has the longest wooden staircase in Asia
- The cave has the most unique stalactite and stalagmite system
Ticket price for Thien Duong
The admission ticket price to visit the cave:
- 250,000VND a ticket for adults
- 125,000 VND a ticket for children from 1.1m to 1.3m
- For children with a height below 1.1m: Free sightseeing tickets
Price of electric vehicles transported at Thien Duong tourist area:
- 4-seat car: One-way ticket price: 60,000VND, Round trip ticket price: VND 100,000VND.
- 6-seat car: ticket price for one way: 90,000VND, round trip: 150,000VND.
- 8-seat car: one-way 120,000VND, two-way 200,000VND
- 14-seat car: One-way price 210,000VND, two-way ticket 350,000VND.
- Notices: Sold tickets are not refundable, and valid within a day.
- Opening time: Summer: from 7:00am – 4:30pm, Winter: from 7:30am – 4:00pm.
Extra tips: Traveling to Thien Duong Cave should be combined with one of the two places to save time, but you get more experience:
- Mooc Spring
- Chay River and Dark cave
Each site has its own beauty, so you choose one of them to spend your time. These are well-known tourist sites that are located close to the Paradise Cave, on the way back. Here, you will enjoy the fresh blue water, and the water games. That’s really fun.
What & where to eat when traveling to Thien Duong cave
You can enjoy the local food after visiting the Paradise Cave. You need to stop at the Dark Cave or Mooc Spring to have lunch because of no restaurants at the tourist area of Thien Duong Cave.
There are some specialties such as grilled hill chickens (ga doi), sticky rice, fried spring fishes, or grilled meats. The price is acceptable when comparing to the other tourist areas.
Resting place when visiting Thien Duong Cave
The tourist area of Thien Duong has no accommodations, so the first choice is to stay at the hotels and homestay in Phong Nha tourist place, including:
- Heritage by Night Hotel
- Saigon Phong Nha
- Chay Lap farm stay
- Phong Nha Lake House
- Also, you can choose some homestay such as Thao Nguyen, Ho Khanh Homestay, or Son River House
A second option is that you can spend overnight in Dong Hoi city. The hotels and resorts have a higher standard and more to choose, checking these:
- Gold Coast Hotel Resort & Spa
- Royal Quang Binh Hotel
- Muong Thanh Luxury Nhat Le Hotel
- Vinpearl Hotel Quang Binh
- Vinh Hoang Hotel
What items to bring
- When traveling to the Paradise Cave in Quang Binh, you should bring snacks, as well as drinks available in your backpack.
- Wear a comfortable outfit and sporty shoes for your convenience.
- Remember to bring sun cream and sunglasses because of the hot weather.
- Bring swimwear and towels if you want to swim at the Chay River, Hang Dark, or Mooc Spring after discovering the Paradise Cave.
The above are some useful information that will hopefully help you feel more confident to explore the Paradise Cave in Quang Binh. An exciting journey with rich emotions awaits you ahead. What are you waiting for? Take your bags and go now! Wish you have an exciting trip to Thien Duong Cave!