Côn Sơn lies in the pine-covered hills of Chí Linh, north-east of Hanoi, on the border of Hải Dương province, and it carries two of the great names of Vietnamese history. In the thirteenth century the Trần dynasty beat back three Mongol invasions, and its monks and commanders left a trail of temples, of which Côn Sơn, Kiếp Bạc and the sacred mountain of Yên Tử are the best known. Trúc Lâm, the Vietnamese Zen school founded by King Trần Nhân Tông, who gave up his throne to become a monk, has one of its centres here.
A century later, the scholar and strategist Nguyễn Trãi, who helped Lê Lợi drive the Chinese Ming army out of Vietnam in the 1420s, grew up and later retired here, and wrote poems about the pines and the stream. The pagoda, shaded by old trees, holds a stone stele and shrines to the Zen patriarchs and to Nguyễn Trãi, and a path leads uphill through the forest to a stone seat where the poet is said to have sat. The cluster of Yên Tử, Vĩnh Nghiêm and Côn Sơn, Kiếp Bạc was listed by UNESCO in 2025.
The nearby towns are Cung Kiệm, with a big population in the surrounding area, and Bắc Giang, a city of over fifty thousand, so fuel, noodles and tea are never far. The roads of northern Vietnam are busy, with motorbikes, trucks and buses all sharing the lanes, and drivers use the horn constantly, so the rider needs a calm head and wide eyes. Rules for foreign visitors on motorcycles are complicated, with licence recognition and paperwork, so check them before you go.
The pleasure is in the hills away from the main roads, with small lanes running through lychee orchards, rice fields and bamboo, and a haze that turns the light soft. The best seasons are autumn and early spring, with festival days in the first months of the lunar year, when the temple fills with pilgrims. Summers are hot, humid and stormy. Take a bowl of pho or banh cuon and a glass of iced tea, and walk up under the pines.