The stairway from the lotus pond ends on the summit ridge of Ngoa Long. The name is Sino-Vietnamese: ngoa is lying down and long is dragon, and the hill is also called simply Nui Mua, Mua mountain, after the cave at its foot. What waits at the top is a small group of things set on the rock, described by Ninh Binh’s tourism promotion centre: a statue of Quan The Am Bodhisattva, a Buddhist pagoda and a stone dragon sculpture.
Quan The Am
Quan The Am is the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara, called Quan Am for short in Vietnam. The centre’s Vietnamese page describes the statue on the summit as gazing down over the wide land of the old capital, in peace: the old capital is Hoa Lu, whose King Dinh Temple is 6.9 km from the ticket gate to the north-west in a straight line. Dress and behave as you would at any shrine: shoulders covered, voices low, no climbing on the statue or its base for photographs.
The stone dragon
A stone dragon lies along the ridge just west of the summit, its body following the line of the rock; a narrow path runs beside it. The path is narrow and on rock. Go out along it only when the rock is dry, keep children beside you, and do not climb onto the dragon itself.
The view
To the south, directly below, is the river that the Tam Coc boats row through, winding between rice fields and towers of rock; the Tam Coc boat wharf is 1.6 km from the ticket gate in a straight line. To the north-west rise the peaks of the Trang An landscape, with the Trang An boat wharf 3.2 km from the gate in a straight line. Both views are the ones Ninh Binh’s tourism promotion centre names. The centre also points to the rice fields below: green for much of the year, gold in the ripening season.
The pagoda
The centre’s English page lists a Buddhist pagoda among the things at the top, alongside the statue and the dragon. It is a place of worship, not a viewing platform; keep the same courtesy there as at the statue.
Before you go up
- The ticket is 150,000 dong for anyone over 1 m tall (checked November 2026). See ticket and opening times.
- The climb is 486 to nearly 500 steps, 0.67 km on foot from the gate. See the steps.
- For the light at the top, see sunrise and sunset.