Lying Dragon Mountain & Mua Cave: What to Know Before You Go

The two-for-one sight that combines both Lying Dragon Mountain (Ngoa Long) and Mua Cave (Hang Mua in Vietnamese) is a must-visit for any visitor to Ninh Binh, whether you’re staying in the region for a few days or you’re just visiting as a day trip.

Personally, I had limited time in Hanoi (and a schedule jam-packed with activities like food tours and coffee workshops!) so I opted for a day trip that included this sight, Hoa Lu, and a boat ride through Trang An.

Our time at Mua Cave & Lying Dragon Mountain was limited, but I was still able to see the highlights.

So, whether you are visiting on a day trip or you have plenty of time to spare in Ninh Binh, there are different ways to plan your visit.

I’ve listed what I did in my limited time at the site, but honestly, I would explore each and every area if I had more time in Ninh Binh and was visiting the site without a guide. It’s up to you how much time you have on your Vietnam trip and how much time you can dedicate to Ninh Binh!

How to Get Here

First, you should decide whether you’re visiting Ninh Binh independently and using it as an overnight base, or if you just plan to visit as part of a day trip from Hanoi.

If visiting on a day trip, the best thing to do is take a combined tour that will also show you some of the other famous sights of Ninh Binh. I took this tour and thought it was excellent value for money and well-planned to show us as much as possible, with a thoughtful itinerary that wasn’t too rushed.

If you’re staying a night or two in Ninh Binh, first you’ll want to get to Ninh Binh via a bus. I use 12go to book my land transport tickets in Asia. If staying in Ninh Binh, check here for transit options between Hanoi and Ninh Binh.

Once you’re settled into your Ninh Binh hotel, you can take a taxi here from your hotel and visit whenever you like. I would suggest very early in the morning, so you can avoid the day trip crowds as well as the heat.

There is a fee to enter (100,000 VND, which is about $4 USD as of time of writing [April 2026]), but if you are taking a guided tour, this will have already been paid for and you can save time and just enter directly.

Planning Your Visit

If you are doing a day trip like the one I went on, you should know coming in that you will have limited time at the Mua Cave & Ngoa Long (Lying Dragon) Mountain: about one hour only, which means you definitely can’t do everything. So here is how I would prioritize it.

While the site is named after the Mua Cave, personally, I think the viewpoints on Ngoa Long are more interesting. So long as you feel physically fit to climb nearly 500 stairs, this is the route I would recommend. To be honest, the Mua Cave itself is not that interesting, despite the site being named after it.

The stairs start at a smaller cave (not Mua Cave), which is easy to pop in and visit before you start climbing the mountain.

This smaller cave at the base of the stairs is called TIger Cave, or Dong Hoang Ho in Vietnamese. Looking at the statue, I suppose you can imagine why it has that name!

When you’re climbing the stairs, you reach — quite literally! — a fork in the road. You can either go to the first viewpoint, which has a five-tiered pagoda atop it. As you climb the stairs, this means selecting the path that forks off to the right side, to a lower summit.

I chose to skip this path and keep going up the main staircase because I wanted to see the famous Lying Dragon at the top (knowing I could visit it on the way down if I had time) but as I climbed higher and higher, I could see how popular it was and lots of people posing in front of the pagoda as a selfie spot.

The steps here are rather steep and uneven, so you’ll definitely want to pay attention to the ground as you’re climbing the stairs, not fiddling with your phone or getting distracted. Sometimes, you’ll definitely want to use the walls on either side of you for a little added stability on tricky portions.

Personally, I was able to do these stairs while I was rehabbing a months-old knee injury, but if you have a more serious movement impairment I would not recommend going to the second stage of the hike, as the stairs do get more uneven and steep the higher you go up.

Also, as a bonus for morale, as I kept going, there were beautiful views of the river behind me.

There were also some cheeky goats standing on the wall, in defiance of the posted rules forbidding you to sit or stand on the walls, which tourists were blatantly disregarding — don’t be those people, please. Goats can’t read, so I forgive them. See also: their cute faces.

Once I reached the top of the Ngoa Long Mountain, which took about 20 minutes even with crowded steps and a bad knee, I took in the scenery from the top of the mountain and then saw the dragon statue for which this mountain became famous.

However, if you want to take a selfie with this dragon, there are a few things to keep in mind: there’s a line at the top to do so, which there is probably not enough time to do if you are on a day trip with a limited time slot.

It’s rather crowded at the top, and the line for people wanting to get up to the dragon moved quite slowly with everyone taking their time for pictures. It’s also a bit exposed here, and besides the chained safety guards you can see, there’s nothing else protecting you up here.

You should be very cautious if you choose to climb up to this viewpoint, as it involves a bit of rock scrambling, and the guardrails are pretty minimal, so it’s not good for those with a fear of heights.

On the tour I took, we were given had about one hour at the Mua Cave complex. Even with only that limited time, I was glad I made the decision to prioritize the viewpoints on the mountain, even though that meant pushing my bad knee.

Once I reached the bottom of the stairs and reailzing I had about 10 more minutes before I had to meet up with my group, I went over to the Mua Cave.

The Mua Cave is less of a cave and more of a natural archway that tunnels its way through the mountain above it. By that, I mean there’s a walkway through it rather than it ending in a dead end.

The view on the other side is very lush and jungly, but Mua Cave itself not particularly interesting from a geological perspective the way I’ve enjoyed from other caves in the past.

If you don’t feel like hiking up the mountain or can’t due to mobility limitations, there’s still plenty to do at this sight, though.

While I didn’t think Mua Cave was particularly impressive, I did really enjoy all the views of the rice fields, which you can navigate on a series of boardwalks.

This is also one of the least crowded areas of the Mua Caves area, so it’s a nice place to take a walk and photograph around if you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of people around you (the hike up the narrow staircases to the mountain can definitely be a bit overwhelming, crowd-wise).

I didn’t spend too much time here on the ground level but I still felt like it was really beautiful and honestly, I would have been happy with an hour just spent strolling these boardwalks as well.

Book your tour of the Mua Cave & Ninh Binh here!

Allison Green

Allison Green is a former teacher who has been travel blogging since 2016, visiting 75+ countries in total. She has a Masters in Teaching and a B.A. in English and Creative Writing. As a former educator, she merges her writing and educational experience to encourage ethical, sustainable travel. She has been a speaker at the World Travel Writers Conference and TBEX. Her writing, photography, and podcasting work has appeared in National Geographic, CNN Arabic, CBC Canada, and Forbes, amongst others. When she’s not on the road, she lives in Bangkok, Thailand.