Vacation in Vietnam--Hoa Lu and Tam Coc (11-2)

Saturday morning we were off to Ninh Binh. The hotel assistant manager had suggested that we book a “join-in” tour (a day tour that a number of people can join) to Hoa Lu and Tam Coc, which are near Ninh Binh, as our transportation to the city. This was an excellent idea, as we got to see the sites and arrive at our next destination all in one day.

We were the last of the twelve people to be picked up; so we headed out of the city immediately. Others had a “free city tour” while they picked all of us up. The ride was about two hours. We passed rice fields with small towns in the distance. A number of the fields had small grave sites in them. I tried to ask if these were very old cemeteries or new ones, but the guide didn’t understand the full question; so I don’t know, but they were interesting to see. We saw them again on the way to the national park.

Our first stop (other than the break) was Hoa Lu, the ancient (10^th century) capital of Vietnam. 

We visited the two temples to the kings during that time.

Lunch was next on the agenda. The guide told us that the restaurant where we were to eat didn’t have room for all of us; so some of us were taken to a neighboring restaurant. The food there wasn’t very good. Jackie talked to some people who ate at the other restaurant and said the food there was quite good; so we think we were at the overflow restaurant. After lunch we embarked on our trip down the river. The area is known for its beautiful scenery that includes karst mountains. Two people were in each boat, and we joined the line of boats going down the river and watched those returning. It’s a busy place, but it was still enjoyable. 

The women—and a few men—often row with their feet. 

We enjoyed the scenery and also enjoyed watching the people fishing in the river. 

The ride went through three caves under the hills. After the last cave, there were a number of boats with people selling food and drinks to the tourists. We were there for a while, as this was the turn-around point and traffic through the cave is one way. Sometimes we had to put our heads down when going through the caves. 

On the way back, the boats stopped and the oarswomen pulled out bags of embroidered goods to sell their passengers. Jackie told our woman we weren’t interested while I looked at the old graveyard we had stopped near. We didn’t like the idea of being pressured to buy something, which we would have felt if we had looked at the items.

After the boat trip, we had booked a bicycle ride. All we knew about it was that we would ride for a short time on flat ground. The alternative was to have time to walk around the area. As it turned out, the area where people waited was where we had lunch and the only things there were a number of shops. Two other people had booked the ride. The bicycles were not good quality; mine had only one brake and it wasn’t good. So it was good that the ride was easy. We rode along the road through rice fields with the mountains in the background. 

After 20 minutes we arrived at our destination: Bich Dong. This was a surprise, as we hadn’t realized that we had a specific destination. The German man turned back and did not join us to visit the pagoda, but our thought was that we were there and wanted to see it. So, the four of us (three tourists and our guide) went in. We learned that this is a 15^th century temple built into the mountain. Literally. 

Some of the buildings were in caves in the mountain. At one point, we walked up the stairs inside the mountain to get to the top. It was dark. 

At the top is a lovely view of the area; so we had to have photos taken. The tour of the temple was rather quick, since the rest of the group was waiting for us. We were gone a little over an hour.

Since we were staying in Ninh Binh, the guide and driver planned to take us to our guesthouse. We said we would take a taxi if they dropped us off where we could get one, but that wasn’t good enough service. Since the guesthouse is fairly new, the driver didn’t know where it was. I gave him the information. After a bit, he stopped and let us out. When I looked around, I didn’t think we were in the right place because it was on the main street and the guesthouse was a ten-minute walk from the main city. But when Jackie got out, she saw Nam holding a sign that said “Jackie,” which, of course worked for either of us. The driver had called the guesthouse and Nam was sent in a taxi to meet us and take us there. It was all so nice.

We loved Guesthouse Kim Lien right away. It is lovely and is on a quiet side street. I had decided that we could pay the extra $5 to have a room with a window, which was a good decision. The room was larger than other rooms, and we enjoyed having a window. In the end, Nam gave us the room for the lower price ($12 a night), which was really nice. We arranged to have dinner at the guesthouse and then settled into our room. Dinner was superb—delicious food and a lot of it. We joined a young Swiss woman who was the only other person eating in the dining room that night. It was fun to chat with her.