Nine waterfalls of Tú Sơn, Hoa Binh, Vietnam

Cửu thác Tú Sơn, or the “Nine waterfalls of Tú Sơn”, is a series of nine waterfalls in Hòa Bình, Vietnam. The waterfalls are located in the Tú Sơn area of Kim Bôi, Hòa Bình, Vietnam, and each of the nine waterfalls apparently has its own Muong legend.

Nine waterfalls of Tú Sơn Info

• Address: Thác Tú Sơn, Tú Sơn, Kim Bôi, Hòa Bình
• Hours: Open all day
• Time needed to visit: 1 - 2 hours
• Entrance fee: 80,000 VND per person, paid on-site

Nine waterfalls of Tú Sơn

One of the first things we did after coming to Hòa Bình was to visit the Tú Sơn waterfalls. It was a particularly hot day when we went, so I was looking forward to seeing the waterfalls, and hopefully getting a bit of a cool down from the spray.

We drove there after checking into the 1st of 2 resorts we stayed at in Kim Boi (you can read about that odd experience in my post here), and arrived at a gate that turned out to be the entrance, where you’re required to pay the entrance fee for the falls. I’m not sure if we were originally aware there was a fee to pay, but we’d already come all this way so … 🤷‍♂️

You’ll know when you’ve arrived at the entrance, as there’s a pretty big, cool statue of 3 elephants on the right.

So after paying the entrance fee(s), and passing the gate, we continued on for what was actually a longer drive than I was expecting before arriving at the bottom of the falls.

Once you arrive, there’s an open area where you can park, along with a few concrete tables and seats, covered with metal roofs, that overlook the stream that runs off from the falls. There’s also a few raised plant beds with some flowers and plants, similar to what you might see in the main courtyard of a pagoda.

So we parked, slathered on some kind of Vietnamese bug repellant, and headed down towards the path to the falls, which starts off with a short concrete bridge passing over the stream.

If you’re afraid to cross the bridge, don’t worry! The dragons 🐉🐉 at the end will keep you safe! 😎

After passing the bridge, and dragons, there’s quite a bit of up-hill walking to do. It had been raining during the day, so the path was actually quite slippery in some spots, especially where the incline was steeper.

On your way along the path, there are a number of statues of various animals from Vietnamese mythology, including a ram, tiger, and dragon.

There were also a few small waterfalls along the sides of the path in a few places … were these part of the “9” waterfalls?? 🤔

The 1st Waterfall

In any case, we finally arrived at what I thought at the time was “the” waterfall.

There were a few other people there, swimming in the pool at the bottom of the falls. The water looked pretty amazing, and considering how damn hot it was, I was really wishing I’d brought my bathing suit at that point! 😓

We hung out at this waterfall for a bit while the kids played in the water a bit, and then we continued on to see what else we could find.

The 2nd Waterfall

We did pass another waterfall, but it looked somewhat tricky to get to considering how wet the ground and vegetation we would have had to cross was. It also wasn’t really easy to get any pics of it, as it was at a lower elevation than the path we were on, so we just continued on up the path.

The 3rd Waterfall

Unfortunately, not everyone respects the environment, as you can see in the following pic with all the trash on the ground in the middle of the path. This is especially true in Vietnam, even more so with the older generation of Vietnamese. Quite sad, and rather disgusting really. 😔

Anyway, we finally arrived at what would be the last point we’d go to, which was really the 3rd major waterfall we saw.

Now, to the left of the 3rd waterfall, there is a bridge that heads off somewhere, up some steps. But it didn’t look very safe, and with the steps likely being wet and slippery, we decided not to go any further and simply headed back down.

Final Thoughts

Now, I couldn’t recall us having access to 9 actual waterfalls while we were at the site, so I did some quick digging online, and looks like it’s possible only the first 5 are now accessible.

Here’s an interesting review from a Anh N on Google Maps that somewhat echos a bit what a few others have to say about the place:

There are a total of 9 falls here but only the first 5 are accessible, the last 4 are blocked by an old bridge which is not fixed.

Firstly, the fee entry is 80.000VND excluding the parking fee, but the guard outside will scam you and say it’s 86.000VND/person and may not give back the extra money if you pay with a much higher cash.

Secondly, the facilities are old, broken down, and not fixed. You may encounter a broken water line on the way to go deeper into the resort without any warning sign and anyone seems to care to talk about it.

The first 5 falls are beautiful to look at. But the road down to the falls may not be so pretty. Some are blocked with dead branches and you should be careful to only step on the rocks, or else it gets slippery and you may step on the lower dirt.

Be careful of the snakes also as there are snakes in a few areas around the drained swimming pool or near the places for children.

I really love waterfalls, so I’m pretty much always up to go visit them. Something about water crashing down from above, and the sound it makes, is just so relaxing, soothing, and incredible. Mother Nature really is amazing!

But I’m not sure if I’d say this one was a “must see”. I mean it was nice, and I’m glad we went, but I wouldn’t suggest going out of your way to visit Cửu thác Tú Sơn.

So I leave it to you to decide if you want to visit or not. If you do, let me know what you thought of it in the comments down below!