Crocodiles eating people. Demons cutting out sinners’ eyes, slicing off their tongues, sawing them in half, putting them in meat grinders and cooking them in oil.
Not exactly what most people expect when they visit the Marble Mountains outside Da Nang, one of central Vietnam’s most popular tourist attractions.
But Am Phu (Hell) Grotto is no ordinary cave.
Discovered in the 19th century and opened for tourists in 2006, Am Phu is a stunning 1,000 s.q.-meter cave that has been transformed into a replica of the Buddhist perception of hell or purgatory.
Walking through impressive stalactites and stalagmites, the first section of the cave is the Purgatory section, where sinners’ souls must first pass to be punished.
Here, a temple has been erected where people can confess and begin repenting for their sins.
There is also a court where hell’s judges evaluate sinners’ acts and decide on punishments.
There is also a scale where one’s good and bad deeds are weighed.
Visitors then enter even darker caves and walk through near pitch black for dozens of meters before coming across stone statues of the gods — illuminated by red fires – and fierce judges who determine sinners’ punishments.
Here tourists often stop at an altar to burn incense.
Then come the scenes of punishment: crocodiles devouring people, demons removing people’s eyes and cutting out their tongues.
Deeper in the cave is a diorama depicting the sawing of a sinner in half as well scenes of people being prepared to be cooked in oil, and even a model of a sinner being put in into the meat grinder.
But after these scenes of horror, visitors soon see a “light at the end of the tunnel” and simply have to follow it to exit the darkness and leave hell behind.
The cave’s sculptures and dioramas were created by local tourism authorities.
Reported by Phan Huy Tram |
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