During our Indochina trip, my partner and I made it a point to at least hike in any of the countries we'll be visiting, we chose Vietnam's extinct volcano, Black Virgin Mountain.

The myth of the mountain can be googled online so I won't dive into it and mainly talk about how the hike has been for us. First, we had to think about transportation. Two months before the trip, I googled the location and the logistics and found that it's quite easy to reach with public transportation. Of course, we had the option of hiring a private car to take us there directly and back to Ho Chi Minh but we decided it's best to experience the country's public transportation. Feeling confident about the plan, we were ready to hike the mountain's summit!

Here's our plan:

• Leave the apartment at 5 AM
• Walk to the Ben Thanh Bus station
• Ride Bus #4/#65 to Ben xe An Suong
• Look for Dong Phuoc and ride the bus to Ben xe Tay Ninh
• In Tay Ninh's bus terminal, look for a taxi to drive us to Black Virgin Mountain's Entrance
• Leave before 4 PM and repeat the same steps in reverse

The drop-offs are straightforward so I was confident we can get there relatively easy.

We started packing the things we'll be bringing the night before but slept a bit late (we were watching Netflix' The Kingdom, so... lol). We left our AirBnB at 5:30 AM and walked our way to the bus station. We saw a bus station near our place and figured that would be the best place to start but unfortunately, we got lost. We opted out of buying a local sim card and relied on offline maps, we reached Ben Thanh Station which is their market. We walked a bit farther and finally, after almost 45 minutes, we found a bus station. We immediately checked the signages for the designated bus station we should ride. We actually saw that there are two buses we can take that will drop us off at Ben xe An Suong, after a few minutes of waiting, Bus #4 arrived and when we boarded, I asked the conductor if their going to Ben xe An Suong just to be sure but I guess because not a lot of people speak English, I may have pronounced the place incorrectly and so they gestured no and we went down. I was still confused, I may have pronounced it incorrectly but they may have at least figured out the place we were wanting to get down. At this time, we thought they may not just want to board us in because of the language barrier and waited again. We saw in the monitor the next one will arrive in 5 minutes and so we stayed in the bus' lane. 

While waiting, we noticed that the bus passed in a different lane which made us more confused as the lane it passed through does not have the number and so we tried the second bus #65 but this time, I took a photo of Ben xe An Suong just to be sure they will understand us. After a few minutes, Bus #65 arrived and I showed the conductor the photo and she said the bus station aloud and gestured us in. We were relieved but quite concerned since it's already 7:30 AM and we might not have enough time to hike. After a few minutes, we're at Ben xe An Suong.

Since we didn't eat when we left the apartment, we ate at the terminal's local cafeteria located on the second floor (you won't miss it). A lady gestured us to sit in a table but we had to stand first to choose our food. First, my partner wanted to simply get 3 chinese sausages, two eggs and one cup of rice while I wanted to get the pork stew with rice. We had another language barrier moment so we received my partner's order twice and one pork stew. We laughed it off and I just gave him the extra ones served to me. The bill came at around 170K with the two bottled juice we purchased. It was quite expensive but we ordered a lot, so it was okay.

Full and ready to continue our adventure, we looked for Dong Phuoc as I saw it was recommended. They offer two vehicles; Limousine which is a van and Bus. We chose the bus and we were given two small bottled water and wet towels which we appreciated. After a couple of minutes, a guy shouted and people started following him, I gestured to my partner that might be our bus since while falling in line to buy the ticket, I heard the guy in front of me that he purchased the same ticket as ours. We weren't sure but a kind lady told us that the man is indeed the one that will take us to Ben xe Tay Ninh. We thanked her for the help and rode the bus.

The bus is airconditioned and there are seat arrangements and it's written on your bus ticket. Good thing that the bus has wi-fi so we were able to be part of the internet civilization even for just a few hours. What we didn't appreciate is the seats are the reclining type so the passengers in front of us reclined their seats quite low so it was kind of hard for us to move and luckily, there wasn't anyone behind ours so we decided to recline ours to have a somewhat comfortable ride.

We rode the bus at 8:53 AM and reached Tay Ninh at around 12 PM. At Ben xe Tay Ninh, we booked a cab and the driver is not aware of the name Black Virgin Mountain but when I said Nui Ba Den he understood. While on the way, we started seeing a tall mountain and the driver gestured that's Nui Ba Den. We got excited and amazed at how huge it is. After ~45 minutes, we reached the park's entrance.

We didn't see a lot of foreigners so we think this place is more for the locals but it IS huge! Here, we quickly walked and lined up in the ticket counter and we experienced chaos. There may be a line but NO ONE uses it. Everyone cuts in front of you and at first, I was confused but I went ahead and asked the lady right away for two tickets to avoid anyone cutting in front of me again. Once we got inside, we looked for the entrance where we can start hiking at the base but took a detour found Thanh Long Cave which the monks turned into a shrine and found that based on the app that my partner has, it's located on the other side. Losing time, we chose to ride the cable car and hike from there. Again, everyone cuts in line. I guess this is a cultural thing in the province since we did not experience it in the city. This can get quite annoying because at the end of the day, we'll get to ride it anyways. But we shrug this off and just joined the chaos.

The line to the cable car is a lot better. There are staffs that would stop anyone who tries to cut and gestures them back to the end which is quite a relief. The cable car is a ~20-minute ride and we hurriedly looked for the stairs where we'll start our climb. While on the way, we saw the Linh Sơn Thiên Thạch pagoda and so we prayed for a bit then went ahead. 

After passing the temple, you'd notice a flight of stairs going up and as we walked, we noticed a few people in their hiking gear so we're confident it's the right way. As we ascend the stairs, we can see how rocky the terrain is. I'm aware that this would be a rocky climb but we weren't prepared on how rocky it is. The rocks are quite big and there are times we had to boulder. We had fun climbing thinking this is another training for our climbing skills to improve as we have been doing indoor climbing for a while. As we hike up, it's pure rocks! I have to warn you, there aren't any straight paths you can just walk after a few minutes, the whole hike is mostly climbing boulders which can really tire you out and on top of that, there are trash everyone so not only you have to avoid stepping on small or unstable rocks, you have to be mindful of the trash to avoid slipping.

After an hour of climbing, we reached what we call the first checkpoint as there was a lady selling refreshments. We rested there for a bit then started moving again. After a few minutes, we reached what we think is a cellular tower which we labeled as the second checkpoint. At first, you wouldn't notice how high up you are until we reached a rocky path where the trees did not hide the view. We were amazed and so we stopped for a bit to rest as we were surprised we were already high. We then continued the hike and reach the third checkpoint which is a lady who also sells refreshments and here we chose to purchase an Isotonic drink named "Revive" which is really refreshing. By this time, it was already 1:30 PM and we agreed regardless if we reach the summit or not, we need to start descending by 2:30 PM to avoid getting home late.

By 2 PM, we reached what's called "The Turtle's Head." Here, you can definitely see the view and be mesmerized by the mountain's structure. It was quite scary as one wrong step you have a chance of falling and we decided not to risk our lives to take a photo at the edge of the rock and simply stayed in a safer surface which is enough for us. We took a few photos here and by 2:30 PM, we started descending. The summit would be an hour or two longer said by one of the expats we spoke to so as agreed, we started descending at 2:30 PM. Descending is a lot harder and it did hurt our knees quite a lot even if we were as careful as possible. Group of kids would hop rock to rock and we feel scared for them as some of the boulders are slippery and unstable but I guess they've climbed the mountain numerous times.

While descending, we got excited as we are seeing handrails of the stairs again and can hear the music. We descended carefully and by 3 PM, we're back! During this time, we roamed the area more and we saw that there is also an option of descending down by riding the toboggan and I was a bit disappointed since I was expecting it to be faster but I guess for safety reasons, the ride automatically breaks to avoid clashing or it might just be the person in front of me is slow. Still, this is a better way to ride down instead of taking the cable car.

From the entrance, we repeated the same transportation process and we got home at 8:41 PM. We, of course, celebrated with pho and milk tea. We plan on coming back to Vietnam again and this time, reach the summit of the mountain, we hear it's amazing. What was quite sad is the amount of trash so we hope the government might initiate a clean-up drive or maybe we all can, I think that would be fun! 

Costs per person (cab is the total one-way fare):

• Ben Thanh to Ben xe An Suong - 5k
• Ben xe An Suong to Ben xe Tay Ninh - 65k
• Cab to Nui Ba Den - 125k
• Entrance Fee - 16k
• Roundtrip ride (Cable Car & Toboggan) - 170k
  
• Cab to Ben xe Tay Ninh - 150k
• Ben xe Tay Ninh to Ben xe An Suong - 65k
• Ben xe An Suong to Ben Thanh - 5k

*The cab rides are metered.