Onward to Ninh Binh….

After Phong Nha the journey north continued and in this case there were few tons worth a stop at until only 90km south of Hanoi.  On the way we stopped for lunch to dry off and a bunch of locals were chilling next door.  We said hello and one of them offered us a shot of the unknown liquid in the plastic water bottle they were drinking out of.  I have to say yes to most things offered to me (within reason) and a shot of potentially homemade alcohol at 11am sounded like a great idea.  After the first shot we continued eating but then he dissapeared and brought out the vodka.  We still had a fairly long day of driving left, so i did one shot of vodka with him and then on the third request, I had to defer to scotty as I don’t think it would be a good idea to have three shots and then drive a motorbike through Vietnam.  They said their goodbyes after shot three and we continued on our way.

Ninh Binh (or just outside of it) has been dubbed the Inland Ha Long Bay of Vietnam and upon arriving, they were not lying.  I booked a hostel that appeared to be off the beaten path a little bit and while getting to it was a pain, once I arrived the location was brilliant.  There is a bamboo dock and chairs along the waterfront of a river which is surrounded by rock outcroppings.  It is so beautiful to just hang out by the water and enjoy the chill view.

I arrived at my hostel at around 3pm which gave me enough time to see a site or two before calling it for the evening.  There was an ancient capital of Vietnam 3km away and so I headed over there to check it out.  Hoa Lu was honestly not that impressive and was certainly not worth the 20,000 dong admission price, but I spotted a set of sketchy stairs heading up a mountain and decided to follow them.  It was actually a pretty decent climb and when I got to the top their was a buddist “Shrine” with incense and offerings.  Continuing down the path a little bit, there was an opportunity to do some scrambling up these really sharp rock formations to get to a cool lookout.  I really enjoy scrambling, so took the opportunity to go up to the very top.  The view I was greeted with was outstanding, but getting down was a bit more difficult than getting up, but I managed.

The ancient city was basically just a small walled complex with a temple at the end.  The noteable feature in the temple was that someone had offered some Budweiser as an offering which I thought was a bit of a low blow to the gods.  I returned to my hostel to enjoy the view before dark and then had dinner with two guys from the states and a girl from France.  The hostel is a bit far from anything and was getting a bit chilly, so I decided to get under the covers and take care of some logistics.  About 30 minutes into “logistics” I woke up and it was 1am.  I closed the laptop and just went to sleep.  I was planning on getting an early start to the next day anyways as it was a Saturday and the boat tour I was planning to do get’s busy.

I woke up at 6:30am, showered and then had breakfast at 7am when it started.  The omlette and bread free breakfast was very tasty!  I headed to the tour spot and arrived there by around 8:00am…. I didn’t get into a boat until 9:15am due to the crowds.  Each boat is supposed to seat 4, but everyone packs their entire family in and since there were so many people, it ended up being 6.  I was having trouble finding a boat with a single opening since most of them were filling up with Vietnamese families, but one called me over and invited me into their boat.  I ended up squished between a very excited women and another guy with a child, mother and father in the front.  It ended up being ok, as they had come prepared with snacks and offered to share

The boat tour itself lasted about 3 hours and went through 3 caves.  They were human propelled with a rower in each one.  They had helper paddles if the occupants wanted to help which we did.  The first cave was really long and there were several occasions where we had to duck our heads or have them hit the roof.  It was very windy and interesting, and was actually pretty impressive.  They had lighting strung throughout, so it was easy to navigate and see.  We made several stops to stretch our legs and see pagodas dotted along the route.  The last stop even included the movie set for Kong: skull island which was filmed there.  Myself and one of the women from out boat, had fun with a small photoshoot in the “village”.

After the boat ride, I headed to Bai Dinh Pagoda, which was a massive brand new complex (built in 2008) that houses many shrines and pagodas.  It was still pretty cool even though it was new.  I walked through their little village at the end and tried some of the local food.  There was hot dog on a stick covered in egg, these sweet balls that kind of tasted like cereal and NEM Chua which I had seen on the side of the road coming in and wondered what it was.  It comes in these little green sticks which ended up being banana leaf, which was wrapped around a little piece of fermented meat.  It’s basically Vietnamese beef jerkey, but I believe they only really eat it in this area.

I headed back to the hotel and on the way saw 10’s of stands lining the road, selling Thit De which are essentially goat meat.  But the whole goat was on the table and you told them what you wanted cut off.  It was about 350,000 dong per kg but I wouldn’t know how yo prepare it even if I was able to get some.  I decided that this would be my dinner selection as it is apparently something enjoyed in Ninh Binh specifically.

I headed back to the hostel, changed and then headed out for a 13km run.  The pace was great and I even managed 2 miles at Marathon pace, which has not happened up until now.

After my run, I chilled with a beer enjoying the nice view and wrote some of this blog.  Due to the weekend nature of the day, a huge host of Vietnamese weekenders showed up and took over the hostel as their own.  They brought a giant, speaker, a bbq and were generally enjoying their weekend.  With the hopes of not being crotchety sounding, I decided to head into town to try and find some goat. I went into Tam Coc which was a bit further south than where I was staying and it was very apparent that this town was where the foreigners stay and where I was, is where the Vietnamese tourists stay.  The restaurants were all western food and things were pretty dead.  Scotty and Audrey had had a late lunch so I decided to find a local place that served goat.  Google told me there was this great spot 15 minutes away but they closed at 8pm.  I had 10 minutes to spare, so I rushed over and luckily arrived just before closing (A large group arrived after me and were also seated so I was probably fine.)  I ordered grilled goat and some burnt rice as well as a beer that I had not had before.  The presentation was a bit lacking, but the food was delicious.  I am terrible at describing tastes so I will just say that the goat was very good, but maybe not worth the price.  The whole meal came out to be 250,000 VND ($11) which is by far the most expansive meal I’ve had so far in Vietnam.  After the goat, I headed back to the hostel to do some blog writing but ended up falling asleep right away.

Next morning, I went for a quicker 10km run then prepared for the journey to Cat Ba Island and Ha Long Bay!