Hanoi, Vietnam
June 24th, 2023
(OOF my photos are bad sorry)
Ninh Binh was the next city we were headed to for the day. We started off regularly by getting up and probably screwing around a bit on our phones. We started to prepare for the long day ahead – probably one of the more enjoyable days of the trip. We immediately went into the elevator and went downstairs to get breakfast– today, it was a bunch of various foods from the hotel cafeteria as well as a big bowl of Pho. As we ate, we talked about everything in the trip that had happened so far as well as the whole week of activities that were to come- it was super exciting, what was about to happen.
We hired up a driver for the day because Ninh Binh was about two hours away and went back to our hotel rooms to prepare ourselves. I brushed my teeth and then grabbed whatever I’d need, which was just a backpack full of small things. We walked down to the lobby again and went across the street, heading into the van that would be taking us around for the day and just got straight into the driving part of the adventure. It was going to be a while to get there and so I just chilled out for most of that time, watching YouTube and talking with Casey, Mia, and Koia.
It took some time, but eventually the grand view of the city of Hanoi began to disappear behind us and we went into the suburban countryside that was the surrounding provinces of Hanoi. There was a lot more grass and hills. We did this whole drive to the Ninh Binh area in about two hours, except for a time where we briefly took a break in order to stretch our legs and use the restroom. It wasn’t long before we were crossing into the Ninh Binh Province and the terrain we saw before even entering the attractions was wild.
The terrain was mostly flat, which was a bit surprising given Vietnam is generally a mountainous country. But the crazier part of it was that there were mountains, but they were very visible and almost like these bumps in the ground that stood out like a sore thumb.
And as we got closer to our first attraction, the mountains got bigger and bigger until we stopped by this one particularly huge mountain. It’d take me hours to climb to the top assuming I could even survive and not fall down. We reached a building on the side at a place called Tuyet Tinh Coc, where our parents went in to… buy tickets? Were we going to the top?
Then we headed towards a tunnel that went right through the mountain. It took a few minutes to walk, but on the other side of the mountain, a paradise was revealed. The view was incredible- it was a massive lake surrounded by mountains covered with the greatest amounts of flora. Inside the lake was also a bunch of life, more specifically a massive horde of fish who were constantly crowding on the shore to eat the fish food people would throw into the lake. I ended up getting one of the bags so I could feed them, which was a lot of fun.
It turned out other than admiring the beauty of the place and feeding the fish, there actually wasn’t much to do in this place, so we got back on our car after about an hour to go get lunch before heading to our next place.
If you’re going to go to a really exotic place like an obscure province with immense natural beauty like Ninh Binh, you’re going to have a really exotic meal, and what did we have to eat for lunch that day?
Goat.
Like, real goats.
We ended up finding this restaurant that was actually someone’s house just down the road that we sat down at. Their house had this massive room filled with tables meant for people to eat in, and they had a menu with loads of options. We went to use the bathroom just before we ate and discovered there was a whole complex of buildings where the people in the house cooked and lived their lives. Our plates were then served with all sorts of foods (don’t even remember what we ate exactly besides goat, but I remember I enjoyed it). The highlight was inevitably goat.
After we finished our lunch, we went to use the bathroom one more time before we headed to our next attraction, where we likely wouldn’t get many opportunities to use the restroom. After we used the restroom, Mia and I got curious again about what else was in this fancy area, and after a bit of exploring we found a pen meant for chickens (which we’d probably eaten earlier) and found that there were at least thirty just chilling in the pen. The chickens didn’t really care when me and Mia arrived, they just continued to do their own business. Then Casey came, and being Casey he immediately scared all the chickens back into their pens by making dog noises at them.
With lunch now out of the way, we headed back on the road again to a river called Trang An which was nearby. On the way, we discovered this HUGE horde of goats that were running being hoarded down the street, which I took a picture of (not very good) because it was interesting to have seen them there.
After a few more minutes of driving through the amazing landscape, we finally arrived at the side of this river. We took a bridge to get to the other side before waiting in a line. For a brief moment, I was confused about what we were about to do. Were we about just admire more great scenery? This river certainly looked like a good place to do that.
But then I saw this:
And realized, wait, no, we’re about to get on those boats and ride for a few miles, and along the way we’ll get to enjoy all the scenery too. This was going to be one of the greatest adventures of my life, and for good reason. After some preparations, we got on our canoes and took off from our original starting point, heading across this huge lake to the other side. Our party was far too big to be carried on one canoe so we got two. I shared my canoe with my parents and brother as well as Koia, while Mia went with her dad and grandparents. Each of our boats also had a person who was manning the drivers’ seat, but there were also rows for us if we wanted to speed up. I took a few pictures of the view as we did began the journey, here they are:
After some time, we reached the other side of the lake and continued into this little river, where we discovered several animals near the banks of the river, including snakes and fish. We approached a huge mountain and headed right towards it, and pretty soon, we saw ahead of us was a cave. My mom, who was already here for the second time, told us that in some areas the cave’s ceiling was quite low and we needed to duck in order to avoid bumping our heads.
We entered the cave and entered into a whole new world. It was dark on all sides, and as we moved through the water the light from outside closed behind us, and it was almost as if we were trapped in the cave. Inside, we found complex rock formations and a hard to navigate through tunnel. It was also very dark inside, but there were a few lights scattered here and there that helped us see.
It turned out my parents weren’t kidding about the ceiling. There were times that the ceilings were a safe ten or twenty feet above our head and we could probably stand up if we wanted to, but there were also parts of the cave that were so tight that we had to duck down in our seats. I ducked down so far that at times my head was lower than my knees. The other guy who was canoeing for us canoed pretty fast and if any of us strayed a little too far up hitting the ceiling would feel like a really hard slap to the face.
The cave seemed to go on forever. When we entered it, there was a sign outside that told us that this cave was 1,000 meters long. Yep, you heard me right. It’s a whole kilometer of just canoeing through near darkness in a cave with incredibly unique rock formations. We didn’t exactly have the whole cave to ourselves, because a lot of people also went to these attractions, but our canoes were at a safe distance and nobody bumped into anyone else. The next canoe was usually at least a few dozen meters ahead of us and we pretty much had at least one section of the cave to ourselves.
After what felt like forty five minutes, I saw light on the other end. We had made it through the first cave! As we came closer, the ceiling began to give way and I could sit up normally again. Then the ceiling disappeared entirely. We had made it through the mountain and now we continued and moved through this swamp we found along the way.
The river we were travelling through eventually gave way to our next stop, a little village on the banks of the river. We didn’t stick around for too long, just to use the restroom, but I did find a Buddhist temple along the way, which was pretty cool. Anyways, after this we continued on the journey and kept passing mountain and swamp after mountain and swamp as well as the numerous bits of animal life that there was to find, mostly fish.
We eventually found our way to another cave which was very similar to the previous one, running through a mountain and being quite dark, but it was only about 15% the size of the first cave, and so we were out of there pretty quickly. There was also a third cave we experienced that was a little longer, which all were similar but very fun to explore.
The experience eventually ended as we had gone through everything round trip. We were now back at the same place where we started. We went back to the car where we started discussing where we wanted to go next. It was late afternoon now and a light rain had begun. We ended up visiting one more citadel called Hoa Lu that afternoon which was just this complex range of buildings that we maneuvered through on the rainy day, but there wasn’t exactly much to do there so we just left after some time. We now had another two hour drive ahead of us, this time taking us right back to Hanoi where we started our day. The experience was great, but we were all exhausted and so much of the trip back was spent on my phone. Around this time, I found through my Youtube feed (lol) that in Russia the Wagner Group Rebellion was going on, so I thought that was interesting.
We had dinner in Hanoi, where we quickly went and had a huge bowl of Pho again for dinner in some random guy’s house. We reflected on our experiences, which were all fun and very eye opening. Before coming to Ninh Binh, I had no idea what we were gonna do or what to expect. Now I came back with a huge understanding of the place, and it clearly dashed my expectations. We’re still in Hanoi, though, and after this day trip to Ninh Binh we’re going to spend one last full day in Hanoi…