After discovering the Northern regions of Vietnam with our fantastic Joker group, it was time to wander off to the south, once more just the two of us.
Day 1
Since Vietnam has quite a good train network we opted for a two hour train ride to Ninh Binh, more quiet compared to Hanoi, where we city-tripped for the last two days. We checked in to a fancy hotel, Tam Coc Holiday & Villa, near Tam Coc Lake, and made our plans for the next days. Our hotel offered free bicycles so no wonder we'd go exploring the surroundings using this two-wheeled mode of transport. We planned a route for the next day going from the Thung Nham Bird Park to the Chùa Bích Dông temple, with a stop for lunch in between and a visit to the Hang Mua pagoda and viewpoint to end the day.
Day 2 & 3
The Thung Nham bird park was a nice and well maintained park where you can bicycle around and enjoy the greens, the birds and many butterflies. While we were there, there was a lot of maintenance, upgrading and/or expansion going on so we can only wonder what it will look like next high season. After our greenish visit, Jens decided we should take the alternative route back, through the fields. A bit more adventurous than the easy tarred road, but way better views. We stopped on the way to have lunch: spring rolls and chicken with rice! Then we continued to the Chùa Bích Dông temple complex. We did not expect to end up visiting a temple and shrines all the way tucked in a cave. It would soon be very clear that Vietnam has something with temples in caves since this will not be the only one we will stumble upon. After this nice surprise it was time to head back in the direction of Tam Coc. Unfortunately, since darkness started to fall quickly, there wasn't time anymore to still visit the pagoda, so we skipped on that. We still did have a drink and nice dinner in Tam Coc though!
The next day we had an awesome lazy day. Sleeping late, having breakfast, crawling back in bed and watch Netflix. Sometimes you just need a day like this. But we didn’t stay in bed all day: we went out for a local Banh Mi at the lake for lunch and decided that it was a good time to make a little boat trip. In a small boat we were floating through the beautiful karst mountains Vietnam is famous for. The boat men and women have a special way of rowing: with their feet!
Day 4
During our last day in Ninh Binh, we rented a motorbike and Jens drove us to the gigantic Chùa Bái Dính pagoda complex. Again, we were surprised when we arrived at our first destination. We did not expect it to be such a big site! We only discovered a little part of the complex but still saw the pagoda and a very big buddha. Then we headed to Trang An for another boat trip through the karst mountains. Even though it started raining it still remains a very beautiful scenery.
In the evening we went out for a delicious Indian dinner before heading to the train station to take the Vietnam Railways’ night train to our next destination: Hue!
