Ninh Binh

We'd had our fill of Hanoi, of the city, the motorbike honking and the hawkers. Sure, there would be much more of that to come in other cities of central and southern Vietnam. At this point, the noise and the hawkers are probably something that comes in every country of the region. Every country also has the slow-paced rural world. Rather than spend one last day in Hanoi, we booked a trip that would get us away from the city. It would get us to place that some describe as “Ha Long Bay on land.” Over the course of the tour we viewed the surreal landscape from seat of a bus, the saddle of a bicycle, and the bench of a metal rowboat.

The limestone outcrops, like the ones that Ha Long is so well-known for, started appearing fewer than ten kilometers outside of Ninh Binh. Shortly thereafter, small village roads led the bus to Hoa Lu. The Hoa Lu site currently consists of a couple of Confucius temples but, at one point, it was a fortress. Vietnam's capital was moved to Hoa Lu for a short period in the 900s loured by excellent natural defenses. The site is surrounded on three sides by large swaths of land peppered with small limestone mountains. A river runs along its forth side. Hoa Lu as a capital didn't last as there wasn't very much potential for cultivation with all the limestone around. Grasses cover some of the remains of the old citadel while two temples are all that remains of what was once a capital.

A bridge and a gate at the entrance of Hoa Lu

Under a cover of mist we strolled the temple grounds passing by ponds and through moss-covered stone gates. Entering the temple we passed by incense burning as visiting Vietnamese bowed their heads three times each, with hands clasped. Dedicated to the Dinh dynasty, gold statues of the Emperor and his sons were displayed in a dark room with gifts of money, fruits, and cookies splayed out in front of them. 

Mihai sporting a poncho on the grounds of Hoa Lu

From the seat of the bus heading to our lunch of goat, noodles and veggies, we peered out the window through the mist to see mountain after mountain shooting up from a bright green landscape. A scene we would get much closer to from the saddle of the bike.

Peddling our bikes through the village and along the rice fields made it all seem so much more real. On the left, a farmer leads her cows up out of the swampy rice field. On the right, another farmer, with her quintessential Vietnamese conical hat, adds scale to the landscape of rice and karst.

Finally the bus pulled up to a small concrete docking area by a river. A handful of boats and their rowers, eagerly awaiting customers, began to mobilize. Without hesitation, Mihai and I made our way to the dock and carefully stepped into the first boat for our Tom Coc experience.

Tom Coc, meaning three caves, is becoming a well-known tourist spot as it features beautiful scenery and it is quite close to Hanoi. Roaming around the old quarter of Hanoi you can see travel agent after travel agent pushing Ha Long Bay and Sapa tours as those ones are by far the most popular. In addition, they have several other tours that you have to ask about, interrupting their Ha Long Bay pitch. This is what I did, as I was already aware of Tom Coc's lour after surfing youtube videos made by backpackers in Vietnam (trip research). Ideally, I would have liked to explore it on my own, but the whole buying a bike thing didn't work out and I decided just to go with the easier tour option this time.

For the first 20 minutes it was just Mihai, our rower and I, with the limestone landscape splayed out before us. It didn't even dawn on me that there were other boats following us on that same river. I couldn't hear them, I couldn't see them, so far as I knew, they weren't there. We had three caves to pass through. In the first 20 minutes we passed through the first two. The first cave was quite short and the light at the end of the tunnel appeared shortly after entering. The second cave was much longer and our rower handed us a flashlight that we could use to admire the shape of the cave and the route that the river had cut through it. In the long stretch following the second cave our boat was passed by another one carrying a couple. Their rower had mastered rowing with her feet. From then on, more boats passed us but I was enjoying the slower pace of our own. Furthermore, the boats and rowers in front of us added a new aspect and scale to our view.

The Tom Coc boat trip lasted nearly two hours. There were many more boats piling into the third cave as some tour buses could drive up to the third cave and take a boat in from there. That third cave was the longest. At one point it opened up into a larger area with a stalagmite resembling Buddha. Boats didn't pass completely through that third cave. Toward the end of it, they all turned around and started the return trip. At one point, Mihai shined the light up and we could see several bats hanging deep inside a whole in the cave's ceiling. Our trip back to the docks was slightly foggier than it was going to the third cave. Regardless the scenery continued to capture our attention.