A pagoda beside a falling stream on Hoàng Ngưu mountain — where Khánh Hoà comes to pray for peace
A Holy Mother pilgrimage site the locals hold sacred
A stream falling over rock right beside the temple — worship and scenery together
A calming view over the Diên Khánh rice fields from the hillside
Dress modestly and in something you can climb steps in; after rain the stream runs strongest and looks best, but the rock is slippery — wear sandals with a heel strap. Avoid the full moon and first of the month if you dislike crowds.
Halfway up Hoàng Ngưu mountain southwest of the city, Suối Đổ is a group of temples and shrines bound up with the worship of the Holy Mother Thiên Y A Na, the mother goddess Khánh Hoà reveres. More than a hundred stone steps under deep shade bring you to the pagoda, and all the way up there is the sound of the stream pouring over rock — the pagoda's name comes from exactly that sound.
Local people climb to Suối Đổ both to make offerings and to cool off: washing their faces in the cold stream, sitting on the rocks listening to the water, looking down over the Diên Khánh rice fields spreading to the horizon. On the first and fifteenth of the lunar month, and at the Holy Mother's festival, the place is packed with pilgrims — come on an ordinary day and it is almost perfectly quiet.
Come to Nha Trang without eating gỏi cá mai and the trip is not complete
One family, one recipe, nearly 50 years. Fish landed that morning, rolled in rice paper and dipped in a secret fish sauce — the same taste since 1977.
