Trip to Trang An / Ninh Binh – Vietnam

On Friday, I left work,
I jumped on an evening flight from Da Nang to Hanoi, arriving on time.
I checked into a cheap hotel near the Hanoi train station at 9:00 pm.
I decided to buy a ticket to Ninh Binh, the nearest station to Trang Anh, which I will visit tomorrow.

Because of the rare consecutive holidays in Vietnam, which have few public holidays, I thought it might be already sold out, although it was the day before departure, and as expected, it was almost sold out. There are only temporary additional seats.
It is on the floor. Dismissed.

In the meantime, I asked the hotel front desk if there was any good way to get around.
They said they could arrange a bus for about the same price as the train.
Apparently, they would let us share an empty seat on a Ninh Binh tour bus and take us to Ninh Binh.
Of course, since we were not going on a tour, it was cheaper than the cost of the tour.
I decided to go for it.

The next morning, 8:30 am.
Boarding the tour bus, it takes a little over two hours to reach the first arrival point of the tour bus,
Ninh Binh Hoa Lu, the first stop of the tour bus.
Here we parted from the tour group and went our separate ways.

After a little sightseeing in Hoa Lu, I thought I would go to Trang Anh, my main destination.
But there was not a single cab at the exit of Hoa Lu.

To think about what to do, I went into a nearby cafe and had a beer.

I ask the lady at the cafe, “Do you have a cab?” I asked.
She said no cab would go from Hoa Lu to Trang Anh because it is too close.
But it is too far to walk.

I asked, “How would you like to get there?”

She replied
“I would prefer to take a motorcycle cab.

I said.
“Well, can you call me a motorcycle cab?”

She said
“OK!”

I waited for a few minutes, thinking that she was a kind lady.

“Here you go!!!!!!!!!!!!”
The lady from earlier came riding by on a motorcycle.

I thought to myself, “Motorcycle cab, that’s you! I thought.
It was a 10-minute ride with the lady and two motorcycles.
We arrived at Trang An without incident.

I was hungry,
I ate Ninh Binh’s specialty, goat meat.
It was delicious!

In Trang An, a World Heritage site, I took an old man’s rowboat to visit caves and temples,

The plan is systematic.
The ticket is a fixed price and there are three courses to choose from.

Get on the boat,
The boat is slowly moving forward.
The beauty of the place cannot be conveyed in a photograph. The silence.

And into the cave.

I thought it was an elegant boat trip,
But then the boatman said to me
“Crouch down to the bottom of the boat! ”

Indeed, we were going into a cave that was so high that if we did not get down on the bottom of the boat, we would hit our heads on the bottom. The cave was long and just barely high enough!
We faithfully followed the boatman’s instructions.
We made it safely through the cave without hitting our heads on the rocks.

And again, the boat ride was slow, graceful, and beautiful.
It was a wonderful experience.

By the way, I stayed at Ninh Binh that day,
I decided to stay somewhere different and stayed at a hotel made entirely of bamboo, which was also great.