Travelling through Vietnam - Ninh Binh and Tam Coc

With the first draft of my YARP written ahead of the deadline next Tuesday, I've given myself a bit of time to write something on here. I still haven't got round to telling you all about my Chinese New Year holiday travels! The last post I wrote about them was Hanoi, where the trip started. From there we got our first sleeper bus to Ninh Binh, only an hour and a half away. The city itself is nothing remarkable, the reason people go there is to go to Tam Coc National Park like we did. We only allowed ourselves one night there on arrival with the plan to get the 12 and a half hour night bus to Hue the following evening. When we arrived it was fairly easy to find our hotel as Ninh Binh seems to only have one main road. We found out about our various options for visiting Tam Coc the next day - rented car, mototaxi or hiring motorbikes - and discussed them over a dinner of goat pizza. Goat is a local speciality in the region!

Goat pizza (with a Hanoi Beer in the top left corner of the photo)

The option we decided on in the end was to get three mototaxis. Alex had been keen to rent the motorbikes ourselves but Chloe and I weren't massively keen on the idea having never ridden one before and not knowing where to go. The benefit of mototaxi was that the drivers could take us to all the places we wanted and go along bumpy dirt roads and see more of the scenery. 

Alex with his driver who's looking happy

... mine didn't look so happy

The first stop of the day was a boat trip through Tam Coc's caves. We hired a boat and driver to take the three of us along through the caves and past rice fields for about an hour. We soon learned that the local people had developed a different way of rowing - rowing with their feet! Unfortunately it was the wrong season to see the rice fields in their prime with the bright green and yellow colours as shown on postcards and photographs of the area. 

The three of us in our boat

Interesting way of rowing!

Beautiful scenery

Farmer working in a rice field

Beautiful scenery

Coming out of one of the caves. They were all quite similar...

Towards the end of the boat trip

From there we went to see a "pagoda". This word seems to be sometimes wrongly used in Vietnam. "Pagoda" is a word used for any religious worship place from what I can gather. I would describe this particular pagoda as a temple. It was very nice anyway! We had to cross a little bridge to reach it and once there there was a little path up through the rocks behind with various shrines.

From there it was back on the bikes to go to Mua Cave. We got taken along bumpy dirt roads allowing us to see a lot of the countryside and scenery. Mua Cave was my highlight of Tam Coc. The cave itself was nothing special; the reason people go there is to climb the hill above to a view point where you can get amazing views of Tam Coc on one side and rice fields and Ninh Binh on the other. The climb itself was quite challenging (we were glad we didn't go in the summer!) but definitely worth the views at the top. On the way down we got to see some goats, having already seen some during our boat trip, proof for why the animal is a delicacy in the area. 

Zig-zagging steps to the top of the hill

The start of the climb

Chloe and Alex on the way up

View of rice fields from the top

Looking down at where we went on the boat trip

The three of us at the top

Stunning view

Mountain goats

Our final stop of the day was Hoa Lu, the first capital of Vietnam. It was a small collection of palaces and temples, hard to believe that it used to be the capital of a country. What was perhaps more interesting was venturing a bit further into the little town and seeing the local people who all seemed happy to see us. One lady even handed Alex her grandson to hold. Very strange!

En route to Hoa Lu

Palace

Hoa Lu

Alex with a Vietnamese baby

Hoa Lu

On our way back to Ninh Binh

 We then made our way back to Ninh Binh in plenty of time for our bus.