Ninh Binh Area

We had a traumatic van ride from Ha Long to Ninh Binh. The driver was a lunatic and we had several near-miss head-on collisions. Then, half an hour before we reached our destination, C projectile vomited all over the van and the chair in front of him (including on the woman in front of him’s jacket and hair!) Fortunately, we brought a few tissues and plastic bags (but not enough to clean it properly). It was really horrible and traumatising! The last half hour we had to all ride nearly vomiting with the smell of vomit permeating the bus (no windows!).

Ninh Binh city

Most tourists stay in the tourist town of Tam Coc to explore the region, but we decided to stay in the center of the city of Ninh Binh city instead.

Across the street from our homestay was the Pagoda. Actually, there were 4 pagodas (all different heights) around a man-made lake with lotus flower sculptures in it. This area also had lots of shops and restaurants and some street food stalls. On the first night we arrived, we walked around this area and visited the pagodas (including a very slippery climb up to the one on the little mountain).

The insides of the pagodas had beautiful wall carvings from the ground all the way up to the ceiling:

The next day it was raining all day so we decided to have a rest day and didn’t do much at all… However, on our second day, the rain stopped around noon, so we rented some motorbikes and off we went to explore!

Trang An

We went to Trang An first and took a 3 hour boat ride. You get a choice of which route you want to take – we chose route 3 because we had several people tell us that it was the most beautiful. The boat took us to several ancient temples (some over a thousand years old) and through several cave tunnels – one of which was 1 km long!!

After we finished our boat tour, it was 5 pm. We discovered that the other place we wanted to visit in the area (Bai Dinh pagoda) was open till 9 pm. So we hopped on the motorbikes and drove over to visit it.

Bai Dinh pagoda

Since it was evening, we were essentially the only tourists there. At one point we saw 2 other people, but that was it. The complex was huge and it took quite a while to walk all around it. But it was really beautiful all lit up and I’m really glad we visited it at night.

The temple is fairly young – only built around 2010 and claims it has the larges Budda statue (but I’m not sure this is true…)

Tam Coc

Unfortunately we decided to stop for dinner at a local restaurant in a village near the pagoda and had a dodgy meal which saw me vomiting during the night…

Mua Cave

The next day, we hopped on the bikes and headed to Mua Cave. The thing to see at this site is not actually the cave, but the view from the top of the mountain. As soon as we parked our bikes, we saw this guy with his son herding his goats through the town:

Right after you buy the tickets, you walk through a hotel complex to get to the site.

There were a lot of steep and narrow stairs to climb up to the top of the mountain!

But the view from the top was nice.

The cave itself was less impressive.

Tam Coc

After Mua cave, we drove south-west to discover the tourist area of Tam Coc. Tam Coc also has a little lake where people take boat rides. We decided not to do this since it seemed like a similar experience to the Trang An boat ride.

The town itself is where most tourists stay so it’s full of restaurants and shops.

Thai Vi temple

About a kilometer north of Tam Coc is a small temple. There really wasn’t much to this temple except that there was a man in there playing a bunch of cool instruments. I felt sort of weird photographing and filming him so I didn’t do much, but I did take one photo and 1 short video of the first instrument he played.

Bich Dong pagoda

After visiting the temple, we drove back to Tam Coc and on to the Bich Dong pagoda. This is a temple complex from the 1400s. The kids climbed up to all the smaller temples and caves in the cliff above.

Tet

Tet is the Vietnamese name for the Chinese Lunar New Year. Although it’s not for another month, Vietnam is already starting to prepare for it. The city of Ninh Binh set up a celebration area near the pagoda on our last night there and the kids tried out some of the activities.

Next stop is Hue.