Located about 90km from Hanoi and 15km south west of Thai Nguyen City, Nui Coc Lake, a reservoir of 25km² and 23m in depth, is well-known for its beautiful scenery and a legendary love story of a boy named Cong and a girl named Coc.

In addition to the beautiful natural scenery of a mountainous area, visitors to Nui Coc Lake can enjoy many leisure activities such as eco-studying, climbing, water sports and cultural-historical exploring in the Nui Coc eco-tourism park.

In March 2007, the Tourism Trade Union Joint Stock Co. invested VND15 billion in this eco-tourism park and inaugurated a 1ha fountain which shoots water over 40m high, giving tourists a spectacular show of more than a hundred water performing arts.

Other interesting destinations waiting to be explored in this area are the Legendary Palace, the Fairy Tale House Underworld and Water-park with the total area of about 6ha.

The Legendary Palace is an artificial cave system, built on 3000m² by over 200 artists from Nam Dinh Province. The outside appearance of the Palace looks like a mountain with a Genie statue on the top. Tourists who take the boat trip inside the palace will see a performance about the love story of Coc and Cong.

There is a variety of entertainment at the water-park, such as The Garden of Lady Tam, The Journey to the west and a huge fish statue which can hold 200 people in its belly. In addition, there is a 350m² swimming pool divided into two parts: a 1.5m deep adult pool and a 1m deep pool for teenagers. Tourists can also enjoy the fresh water on the Lazy River, or have fun playing video games in the games-area.

Nui Coc eco-tourism park also has an animal reservation center, raising and protecting animals such as alligators, ostriches and bears.

Having a wonderful time on a boat exploring islets in the lake is also at the top of tourists’ choices. There are 89 islets in the lake, the biggest one is the Cai Islet or Islet of Culture where tourists learn about Vietnamese traditional culture through 2061 cultural and historical items on display, such as the Bodhisattva of Compassion with thousands of hands and eyes, items of River Lake’s Culture, Sa Huynh-Da Cham’s culture and Oc Eo Culture, and more. All of them are exhibited in a 200 year old house reflecting the excellent traditional architecture of Vietnam.

There are many hotels and guest houses for tourists who want to stay overnight at the park. They can choose from the Huong Co or Thai Duong hotels, or opt to stay in an exotic room in a tree trunk in the Three Pine Wood Love Story Cave.

The area has 18 comfortable rooms on seven layers which are built over a system of caves. Tourists spending a night here will hear the water fall and the sound of khen, a musical instrument of the ethnic people when they go to the market in the early morning.

(Source: SGT)