There's nothing special to the town of Ninh Binh itself. What att
racts people to the town is the surrounding scenery. Called the "Ha Long Bay on Rice Paddies," the countryside around Ninh Binh is studded with karst hills similar to those found in Ha Long Bay and Yangshuo in China. After a restful night, I get on my bike to explore the countryside.
racts people to the town is the surrounding scenery. Called the "Ha Long Bay on Rice Paddies," the countryside around Ninh Binh is studded with karst hills similar to those found in Ha Long Bay and Yangshuo in China. After a restful night, I get on my bike to explore the countryside.As I ride down a wide boulevard out of town, two villagers wave at me, I wave back and keep going. A couple of kilometers down the road, I hear two voices yelling, "hey, hey! monsieur, monsieur!" I stop and look back. The same two villagers - one a woman in her fifties, the other in her forties - are chasing me on their bikes. They catch up to me. The one in her forties says between breaths, "Monsieur, vous ... allez ... tres ... vite." Ooh, they are calling me monsieur. I like that. Clearly they have a lot of French visitors here.
"Parlez vous anglais?" I ask, "Je suis Americain." "You see cave?" she switches to English. "Yes, I'm going to Tam Coc." "You see cave, my boat on river," she says. Ah, I see what is going on here. They are trying to get some business by intercepting tourists before they get to the official boating dock. I hesitate for a moment. I normally don't accept offers from tauts, but these two just sprinted for two kilometers on their squeaky bikes to catch up to me. I was also told earlier by the people at the guesthouse that the dock could get busy with busloads
of tourists coming down from Hanoi. All right, I will take them up on their offer.
After negotiating a price, I follow them through their village to their home by a canal. We get on the boat. The two women take turn rowing down the canal that winds through rice paddies and karst hills. The boat glides over the still water, the only sounds are those of the paddles breaking the water and crowing of the roosters. My guides carry on a lively conversation in Vietnamese, occasionally saying hello to the people working the fields. It feels like they are just taking a walk, or in this case a row, through their neighborhood and I am just along for the ride. As we glide over the water slowly, I sit back and enjoy the tranquility. An hour later, the boat stops at an embankment. We get off at a small monastery built in front of a cave. After visiting the cave and walking around a bit, I suddenly realize I am the only tourist here. This is not Tam Coc. Well, wherever this place is, at least I have it to myself.
The return trip follows the same canal back to the village. T
hey let me try my hands at rowing the boat. After sending the boat over a mud bank, I hand the oars back and sit back to watch them expertly steer the boat clear of any vegetation or other submerged obstacles. Soon we get back to where we started two hours earlier; I am glad that I decided to go with these two "guides." Even though I did not get to see the main tourist attraction, the private tour of this village through its waterways is more than worth it.
I get off the boat, pay the women, and ride towards the next village. After lunch, I come upon another monastery; this one is built at the base of a kars
t hill. An easy climb to the top of the hill affords me an open vista of the surrounding countryside.
Later, I happen to ride by the dock where tourists take their boat ride to the caves. It is quite a bustling place with boats lined up at the dock and vendors hawking their ware. The canal is like a highway with one boat after another in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I am glad I took my alternative boat trip this morning.
The next day, I ride out to another village twenty kilometers away to take another boat trip. This boat trip will take me through a fishing village and to a cave at the end. I arrive at the dock and see an empty parking lot with a shack that sells tickets. I learn that I can either wait an hour for a group of people to arrive or pay for two tickets to charter a boat. I decide to sit down for lunch and wait a little. After an hour, the group still has not shown up, so I have no option but to charter a boat by myself.
The boat is big, enough to fit
ten people comfortably. Feeling incredibly indulgent, I pull up a chair and sit in the middle. The boat driver starts the motor and down the river we go. The river is wide, with only a small boat here and there. The people here are so used to getting around by rowboats, they even row with their feet. We pass the fishing village. The villagers seem to be doing well, judging by the houses along the river. In front of each house, a few rowboats are moored to the bank of the river. When one hears the term "personal transportation," rowboats are not something that automatically spring to mind. But these boats are exactly it - personal transportation.
Going past an interesting-looking church built in a Chinese arc
hitectural style, the boat speeds down the river, passing smaller boats on the side. I hope the locals do not look at me and think, "Damn rich Korean tourist sitting in that big boat all by himself." Well, I have to admit that it is an extravagant thing for me to do.
Passing a couple of open air quarries, we arrive at a mooring post. The driver tells me I have forty minutes to visit the cave a kilometer away. I walk up to the top of the embankment; a view of the flooded rice paddies spreading around karst hills unfold before me. Walking on the wide levee that leads to the cave, I wonder why this place is so deserted. The absence of noise or people is still something I am not yet used to in Vietnam. Normally I would see plenty of people even in the smallest villages. But here, I can only see a couple of people on a boat in the distance and a few cattle grazing here and there. Fifteen minutes later, I arrive at the cave entrance. A guide sits there reading a book. "Looks like a slow day today," I say to him. "The bus comes later," he explains. He then leads me through the cave and points out to me the different things the stalactite and stalagmite resemble.
After seeing the cave, I walk back to the boat and wake up the snoozing driver. He gets up and offers me the hammock he slept on. Swinging on the hammock on the way back, our boat c
rosses paths with boats full of foreign tourists - those must be the people who came on the bus.
On the way back to Ninh Binh, I decide to ride on the embankment that follows the river. With a smoothly paved top and no vehicular traffic, the river on one side and rice paddies and villages on the other, this is some sublime cycling. The pavement continues for about six kilometers and becomes a dirt road, then joins the main road back to the city.
A private boat tour yesterday and a chartered boat t
our today. That may sound extravagant, but in dollar terms, both trips are quite cheap. Yesterday's tour cost me $4 and today's boat charter cost $5. So, no, I don't have to break the piggy bank to afford them.
This evening I will take the overnight bus to Hue. I have been told that the stretch of road between here and Hue is not too exciting. The bus will save me a good five days of riding, giving me more time to explore the beautiful central and southern Vietnam.
Stats:
"Parlez vous anglais?" I ask, "Je suis Americain." "You see cave?" she switches to English. "Yes, I'm going to Tam Coc." "You see cave, my boat on river," she says. Ah, I see what is going on here. They are trying to get some business by intercepting tourists before they get to the official boating dock. I hesitate for a moment. I normally don't accept offers from tauts, but these two just sprinted for two kilometers on their squeaky bikes to catch up to me. I was also told earlier by the people at the guesthouse that the dock could get busy with busloads
of tourists coming down from Hanoi. All right, I will take them up on their offer.After negotiating a price, I follow them through their village to their home by a canal. We get on the boat. The two women take turn rowing down the canal that winds through rice paddies and karst hills. The boat glides over the still water, the only sounds are those of the paddles breaking the water and crowing of the roosters. My guides carry on a lively conversation in Vietnamese, occasionally saying hello to the people working the fields. It feels like they are just taking a walk, or in this case a row, through their neighborhood and I am just along for the ride. As we glide over the water slowly, I sit back and enjoy the tranquility. An hour later, the boat stops at an embankment. We get off at a small monastery built in front of a cave. After visiting the cave and walking around a bit, I suddenly realize I am the only tourist here. This is not Tam Coc. Well, wherever this place is, at least I have it to myself.
The return trip follows the same canal back to the village. T
hey let me try my hands at rowing the boat. After sending the boat over a mud bank, I hand the oars back and sit back to watch them expertly steer the boat clear of any vegetation or other submerged obstacles. Soon we get back to where we started two hours earlier; I am glad that I decided to go with these two "guides." Even though I did not get to see the main tourist attraction, the private tour of this village through its waterways is more than worth it.I get off the boat, pay the women, and ride towards the next village. After lunch, I come upon another monastery; this one is built at the base of a kars
t hill. An easy climb to the top of the hill affords me an open vista of the surrounding countryside.Later, I happen to ride by the dock where tourists take their boat ride to the caves. It is quite a bustling place with boats lined up at the dock and vendors hawking their ware. The canal is like a highway with one boat after another in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I am glad I took my alternative boat trip this morning.
The next day, I ride out to another village twenty kilometers away to take another boat trip. This boat trip will take me through a fishing village and to a cave at the end. I arrive at the dock and see an empty parking lot with a shack that sells tickets. I learn that I can either wait an hour for a group of people to arrive or pay for two tickets to charter a boat. I decide to sit down for lunch and wait a little. After an hour, the group still has not shown up, so I have no option but to charter a boat by myself.
The boat is big, enough to fit
ten people comfortably. Feeling incredibly indulgent, I pull up a chair and sit in the middle. The boat driver starts the motor and down the river we go. The river is wide, with only a small boat here and there. The people here are so used to getting around by rowboats, they even row with their feet. We pass the fishing village. The villagers seem to be doing well, judging by the houses along the river. In front of each house, a few rowboats are moored to the bank of the river. When one hears the term "personal transportation," rowboats are not something that automatically spring to mind. But these boats are exactly it - personal transportation.Going past an interesting-looking church built in a Chinese arc
hitectural style, the boat speeds down the river, passing smaller boats on the side. I hope the locals do not look at me and think, "Damn rich Korean tourist sitting in that big boat all by himself." Well, I have to admit that it is an extravagant thing for me to do.Passing a couple of open air quarries, we arrive at a mooring post. The driver tells me I have forty minutes to visit the cave a kilometer away. I walk up to the top of the embankment; a view of the flooded rice paddies spreading around karst hills unfold before me. Walking on the wide levee that leads to the cave, I wonder why this place is so deserted. The absence of noise or people is still something I am not yet used to in Vietnam. Normally I would see plenty of people even in the smallest villages. But here, I can only see a couple of people on a boat in the distance and a few cattle grazing here and there. Fifteen minutes later, I arrive at the cave entrance. A guide sits there reading a book. "Looks like a slow day today," I say to him. "The bus comes later," he explains. He then leads me through the cave and points out to me the different things the stalactite and stalagmite resemble.
After seeing the cave, I walk back to the boat and wake up the snoozing driver. He gets up and offers me the hammock he slept on. Swinging on the hammock on the way back, our boat c
rosses paths with boats full of foreign tourists - those must be the people who came on the bus.On the way back to Ninh Binh, I decide to ride on the embankment that follows the river. With a smoothly paved top and no vehicular traffic, the river on one side and rice paddies and villages on the other, this is some sublime cycling. The pavement continues for about six kilometers and becomes a dirt road, then joins the main road back to the city.
A private boat tour yesterday and a chartered boat t
our today. That may sound extravagant, but in dollar terms, both trips are quite cheap. Yesterday's tour cost me $4 and today's boat charter cost $5. So, no, I don't have to break the piggy bank to afford them.This evening I will take the overnight bus to Hue. I have been told that the stretch of road between here and Hue is not too exciting. The bus will save me a good five days of riding, giving me more time to explore the beautiful central and southern Vietnam.
Distance ridden around Ninh Binh: 83.6 km
Odometer: 431.0 km
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