The land version of Ha Long Bay, a place of towering limestone stacks and weaving waterways.  We visited at an awful time to see the rice paddies (brown mud), but the caves, mountains and waterways helped us see why so many people make this a stop on their tour of Vietnam. 

Day 176: A sleepy day in Ninh Binh Valley

Our bus got in just before 4am, so it must have made good time (and I must have slept, although of course, Chris hadn’t).  We were dropped off at the Long Hotel in Tam Coc; the heart of the touristy area and booked a Grab taxi to take us to our place.  The kids seemed wide awake at least!

A Grab taxi to our place set us back all of £1.36.  After a short ride through the countryside, we arrived down a narrow concrete street in the pitch black, and got out of the car outside what we were pretty sure was our place to stay.  The gate was barred shut…

We asked the taxi driver to give them a ring for us, and so someone soon came out to let us in.  Phew!  Time to go back to bed.

Except that there were cockerels and dogs everywhere and they all seemed to want a go at the national pastime of karaoke.  Not helpful!

We emerged for breakfast pretty much as late as they do it, and then retired for more napping for some, and planning for me.  I didn’t think there would be much to do here, as most itineraries suggest only a day or two here to see the main things.  Our four days here were soon pretty filled with activities though, with wetlands, caves, boats, and birds. 

Unfortunately, the weather was not going to be our friend whilst we were here, cold, cloudy and a bit wet by the end.  We needed to make use of this afternoon, so we headed out for lunch (eventually, we were a bit sluggish).  Not far down the road we found a coffee shop to do the job.  Noodles, soups and a chicken sweet and sour hit the spot, but took nearly an hour to come.  We’re pretty sure they forgot Chris’s order as the noodles were off the ‘fast food’ menu, and they appeared about 5 minutes after we asked whether they were coming…

We continued down the road through this little village, turning up a side road (path) which gave us sight of the karst hills which this area is famous for.  We could see the steps heading up the Mua hill and the dragon on the top. 

The base of these hills is all rice paddies, and unfortunately they are currently empty after the harvest, so are basically mud.  Not the most aesthetically pleasing, after the green paddies of Phong Nha we were starting to think that we’d finally found rice season in SE Asia.  Apparently, we’ve now overtaken it ☹. 

We passed a man walking back from the hills, he’d walked 4km from town and decided that the entrance cost for climbing a mediocre hill with a lot of other people was too expensive.  It’s only about £3.30, but that’s quite a lot to climb a hill in Vietnam! 

With the cloudy skies, murky hills and brown paddies, we also decided that the views were unlikely to be worth it.  Which is such a shame, as we could see that in the right season, with a bit of sun, the area would be beautiful.  The lack of sleep may have had something to do with our decision too…

Instead we chose to wander around the valley instead, watching the locals working the rice paddies, knee deep in mud, digging and weeding as they prepare for planting.  Which was actually rather nice.  We met some goats too, who are a favourite on the menu in this area…

We were all pretty sleepy, so a dinner of sandwiches in the room watching a film together seemed in order. 

Day 177: Trang An, Bich Dong Pagoda and Thung Nham Bird park

With only one sunny day forecasted and chances of rain on the rest, we decided to pack most of our fun into one long day.  We pretended that we’d all had two good nights’ sleep, rather then the little that we’d actually got and forced ourselves up.    

We hired scooters from our guesthouse and headed up to Trang An.  Might as well start with the main attraction here in Ninh Binh, the ‘grottoes’.  Ninh Binh was once like the more famous Hai Long Bay, eroded by the oceans into large, near vertical sided stacks of limestone.  The seas have receded here though, leaving cave ridden hills surrounded by waterways and rice paddies.  There is a lot of water here!  There are a number of places to get a bamboo sampan and be rowed around these waterways, through caves and tunnels and past small temples.  We avoided the main area, Tam Coc, as there are a lot of reviews of boat drivers pushing for tips and very forceful food sellers.  That would totally ruin it for us.  Trang An actually ask for feedback and specifically ask about the boat drivers attitude and whether they asked for tips.  It’s still a really busy place, as any Google of images here will show.  We tried to beat the bus loads from Hanoi, but failed miserably, arriving about 10.30am when they were all due.  Luckily for us, it seems not to be peak season at the moment, and perhaps Coronavirus is keeping people away, but the long rails to manage humungous queues were totally empty and we walked straight up to one of the one thousand plus boats here (!!). 

Each boat takes four, which was perfect for us.  Our driver insisted we all wear life jackets and we were off.  He rows the boat from the back, but facing forward, unlike what we are used to.  At least he can see where he’s going!  There are three routes you can take from Trang An, and all start off together, so there were a fair few boats on the river as we set off.  Route two soon split off though.  We’d chosen route three, as this has a 1km long cave to row through, with really low ceilings, and we’d read that most people do route 1, which has more individual caves and temples. 

Our rower had clearly had his Weetabix, and coffee, and perhaps a Red Bull as he was fast!  We overtook a number of boats on our way to the first stop, a small temple nestled at the foot of one of the towering stacks. 

We disembarked for five minutes to have a look around, before getting back in.  We’d seen the entrance to the long one at the back of the temple.  No one was going that way – perfect!

As the other boats headed off down the river, ours turned into the cave mouth, ready for our trip underground. 

It was pretty great, with our rower skilfully angling the boat between hanging stalactites and rock, we had to have our heads ducked most of the way as the ceiling passed just above us. 

We emerged into the sun again, surrounded by karst and pampas grass.  Beautiful. 

After another, shorter cave, we checked out another couple of temples and one more cave.  The temples were pretty uninspiring, although the one in the middle of the water looked very serene. 

We’d thought our rower may tire, but he was like the energiser bunny.  There are spare paddles so you can help (which I imagine in the summer, on the longer routes is incredibly welcome – there’s no shade on these boats and they can be out rowing for three hours at a time!).  The kids were keen, so we spent most the way back powered by four oars.  I’m not sure how much they helped, but we were overtaking everyone and got back in under two hours. 

It was a really enjoyable ride, made better by the lack of motor boats, and we could see why people come here just for this. 

Now we needed some lunch, so we headed back down some quieter side roads looking for a restaurant we’d driven past.  No tourists here – just locals.  The menu had English though, and the waitress spoke good English.  Goat is a regional speciality, so we tried their recommendation, and the soup with crisped rice, vegetables and some sort of peanut sauce.  

It was good, and very different to what we’d been eating so far in Vietnam.  The crisped rice things were good dipped in soup! 

Feeling refreshed, we followed some other paths around the mountains before heading back through Ninh Binh village to get to Bich Dong, a pagoda up the side of a hill.  We avoided the main roads, getting to see a bit more local life on the way, before parking up at the temple.  The more obvious route in goes through a small archway, into the main temple area. 

Nothing special here.  But following the steps that lead up take you to a pagoda built into a cave on the side of the hill. 

Around the side, is a path which takes you around the back of the temple in the cave.

Up more steps is a cavern with a bell and a shrine.  Outside again are more steps to another small pagoda on the slope.

There is another path you can climb up from the initial temple, and we could see people on the steps up, but we could not figure out how they got there!  We were not alone, others were also wandering around looking for this route which, according to our friend Maps.Me, would take us to a scenic field and another cave. 

Eventually I managed to call to some others through a locked gate and get directions.  You have to go back out to the motorbike parking and then follow a path through and around the lake to get up the side.  The path leads up steps, and then down into a hidden valley.  Here there’s a single house, and farmland.  Someone gets to live here!?  It’s stunning, with the mountains on all sides and green fields stretching out.  A pathway leads all the way down the side so you can enjoy it. 

Unfortunately, the cave is private and was locked.  The man who supposedly appears to take you on a tour was either not there, or too busy re-concreting some things around his house.  He ignored all attempts to engage, and we were informed by the people coming out before us that they’d had no luck either.  It was a shame, but the valley was worth it on its own. 

Another 5km down the road is Thung Nham Bird Park.  It’s not always easy to know what to expect from a Vietnamese park, but we’d been recommended this one by some other travellers and there was the promise of a large waterbird roosting site. 

When we turned up there were hardly any people there.  It’s really not on the tourist radar.  The paths to the left take you past the Mermaid Cave, which is an odd place, and definitely not somewhere you should go if you have a bad back, bad knees, or are unable to walk crouched on wobbly bamboo for 100m.  But for us it was great!  A bamboo walkway sitting just above the height of the water runs up the cave, then back and down the tunnel.  For most of the first part, this requires you to be totally hunched over to move along, there are parts where its almost an all fours job!  The cave itself is lit up with red and blue lights, which added to the fun of this cave.  Obviously, the kids loved it!  We did too.

The tunnel brings you out on the other side of the hill, where the path continues up the side of the river to a wetland area with trees full of birds.  Some steps take you up to a viewpoint where you can look down on them.  Grey Heron, Egrets and Night Herons were all here in numbers, so I was in my element 😊.

We did have to move on though, as the sun was starting to drop and we had a fair ride back ahead of us.  We did not want to do it in the dark – some of the potholes on the road out here were pretty spectacular! 

We tried to find the other cave here, but the entrance was well hidden as we walked right past where it said on the map…  There’s a lot of development work being done on this other side of the park, with large flower gardens, restaurants, lights, lanterns, swings and other things to make this a really nice place to hang out for an afternoon. 

We didn’t have time to linger though.   The ride home was cold!  With no sun, the wind from the bikes cut through our layers.  By the time we got back, around 30 minutes later, we were all pretty chilled and put on all our layers to warm up, not looking forwards to sitting outside to eat at a restaurant. 

But why go out?  We ordered baguettes from the homestay again and snuggled up under the covers to warm up 😊.

Day 178: Catching up in Ninh Binh

There were other places to go today, like the Wetlands, and possibly another cave.  But really they were both more moving about on water through mountains and another cave.  We’d done quite a lot of both.  They were also quite a long way out, so it meant hiring a car or another long day on the scooters…

With a lot of low cloud around ruining the view, we decided that we’d all be happier chilling out today.  We have a lot of flights to book now that we’ve changed the plan, and the kids schooling has been a bit lax lately. 

Having seen this crazy lunch on the menu at Hoa’s café two days before, the kids were desperate to try it so we treated them to a very odd lunch.

At this place, she’s clearly just googled some pictures of meals for Westerners and added them into her menu.  I don’t expect this is actually ordered much – it has the chips from Jollibee on the picture!  (There was also a McDonalds in the picture above!).  As it has spaghetti bolognaise, fried chicken and chips, the kids were sharing.  The lady did seem a bit confused by it though, and we never actually got the spaghetti!  Instead she discounted us back down to the McDonalds price.  Ah well.  We picked up some fruit on the way back to fill the kids up; bananas and some very delicious mini satsumas.  

Day 179: Another chill out day

We don’t normally do two of these in a row, but with all the flights booked there’s a lot of accommodation to look into, and I know that when Mum’s out we’ll have less time for admin and blogging.  Therefore we were more up for booking accommodation and catching up with the blog than travelling more waterways through mountains. 

The kids also just love to play, and they don’t get much chance – they really enjoy these days of playing alternated with learning. 

As a bit of a change of scenery, we headed out to Rose’s restaurant in the afternoon for lunch, where there are board games for us to spend some time together (actually doing things around a table together, not just sat in a room together).  We ended up spending a few hours playing Exploding Kittens, most the other games had instructions in Chinese, and we love this game.

After more learning, the kids were enjoying Chris’s imitation school complete with school whistle, and ticking some jobs off the list, it was time for dinner.  We ate in again, although neither Chris nor Evie could finish theirs… hmmm….not usually a good sign…

Day 180: Hanoi

Not a good night, with Evie ill in the middle of it (good job it’s our last night here!).  Now we know why she didn’t want her dinner.

No chance to chill today though, we had to be up, packed and in the taxi before 9am to make our train. 

Phew, how many days in a row can you eat egg and vegetable noodles for breakfast?  I think this one might be one too many!  Evie didn’t fancy it at all. 

We’d planned to travel a lot of Vietnam by train, but in the end this was all we were going to manage.  Our host suggested a minivan would be easier, but we were determined to get the train especially when we were so close to both stations. 

Getting the train was really easy; the station was big, with signs and announcements in English, and we already had our tickets courtesy of our host.  The train was on time and the seats were comfy and roomy.  Not bad!

The views on the journey were a little tempered by the low cloud, and the rice paddies are definitely not looking their best…

So many duck farms on route too! 

As we came towards Hanoi, we passed down the infamous ‘Train Street’, where the train literally passes within feet of the house and shop fronts on either side.  Anyone on the street has to press right in against the buildings or get squished!  We saw some people pressed up against the sides as we went through.  Not sure I’d want to live there! 

With Evie feeling really tired, we decided against any sort of trip around Hanoi.  Instead we walked the short distance to the Guest House, which was up a dirty alley much to the kids disgust!  It was called the Hanoi Luxury Guesthouse so they were expecting more.  Luckily, once inside it was actually quite nice. 

As Evie was feeling ill, she called the shots, so it was off to McDonalds for lunch.  Hmmm, at least we know that it’s been prepared properly so we shouldn’t be exposed to any more tummy bugs…

We passed a cinema on the way, and it timed perfectly to watch ‘The Call of The Wild’ on the way back home.  What else were we going to do for the afternoon?  It’s one of my favourite childhood books so it brought back lots of memories. 

We had also passed a hair salon, so the others left me to it and went back to the rooms.  I got a very good haircut for a tenner 😊.  We also couldn’t help but admire the improvised warning to drivers of a hole in the road purely by shoving an upturned tree into it.  One of the things I love about SE Asia is their ability to improvise and use anything laying around to solve a problem – not like us Westerners with our gadget for this, and another for that (thinking of our kitchens mostly here, and those catalogues that come through the door with all those things that you never knew you needed…).

By the time all this was done, it was pretty much time to head back out to find some dinner.  Travelling often feels like an endless search for food!  We only had 320,000 dong left, just over £10, so dinner had to be somewhere reasonably priced.  The first restaurant we tried was way over, but we found a Vegan place soon after which fit the bill nicely.  We ordered a plate of fried rice and the hotpot for two (as that was basically all they had on the menu that night!).  The Hotpot is not what you’d get in England; instead it’s a burner, a saucepan of stock and plates loaded with many different types of mushrooms, noodles, vegetables and tofu which you cook yourself.  Not the most delicious in terms of sauce flavour, but the mushrooms were lovely, and trying to figure out what to cook when is always fun.  I’m not sure we were meant to put everything in the pot at once though – she laughed at us a bit when she came over!

It was only a short walk back to get our little girl into bed.  Tomorrow – Singapore!

Singapore is going to be rather a change from the rest of SE Asia.  We’re meeting my mum there 😊.  We’ve got a few days in this ultra modern city.  Follow us there.  Or if you missed our favourite place in our travels, head back to Phong Nha.