Scooting through Ninh Binh

After a brief night in Hanoi a couple days ago, we had time to wander around the Old Quarter before our shuttle picked us up to take us to Ninh Binh.  We had our first banh mi, our first Vietnamese egg coffee, and our first near miss of getting hit by a motorbike.  :)  We also had some delicious buns filled with chocolate, coffee, or vanilla.

Flowers hanging in the Intercontinental Westlake.

Gavin enjoying his first egg coffee in Hanoi's Old Quarter.

Me in Old Quarter.

In my favorite art shop - Buddha Gallery! We have
bought something here every time we come to Hanoi!

At a coffee shop.

First banh mi!

We arrived at the Reed Hotel in Ninh Binh yesterday afternoon, and we quickly discovered that the hotel is really in the middle of nowhere.  We had to walk a half hour to get dinner!  Ninh Binh the city also doesn’t have much to offer, other than a landing platform for exploring the countryside, which is what we did today!

One of Gavin’s colleagues didn’t have to work today, so we plus her husband rented motorbikes for the day to drive around and see the sights.  Once we got out of Ninh Binh, the karsts rose majestically out of the earth all around us, and we twisted and turned through them on our motorbikes.

Ready to ride!

Our first stop was Trang An, a rowboat tour through the karsts on a large lake that seems more like a river than a lake.  Unlike my Tam Coc rowboat tour a few years ago, these rowers rowed with their hands instead of their feet, were all dressed in uniform, and didn’t harass us for tips, which was nice.  :)  This lake wasn’t surrounded by rice paddies like the Tam Coc boat trip, so we were closer to the karsts, and also were able to take a boat through some of the caves and grottoes inside the karsts.  One cave took us around 20-30 minutes to get all the way through, ducking our heads under stalactites for most of it, but sometimes it opened up into huge, tall caverns.  We also stopped at a few temples that were in the lake on little islands.

Trang An boat tour through the karsts.

Boat selfie! 

Into the cave...

Inside the cave - we were rowing through the cave for around 20-30 minutes!!!

More scenery.

A temple on an island in the lake.

Our rower took several photos of us along the way.  Literally ALL
of them had his thumb over the lens partway. This is the only
one I was able to crop it out!

A temple in the lake. 

At one of the stops there was a little snack stand
with ice cream, which sounded amazing on this
sweltering hot day. This is a "selfie ice cream
sandwich," so of course I had to take a selfie
with it.  :)

After the boat tour we went to Hoa Lu, the old capital of Vietnam.  I had been there on the last trip, and we just walked through quickly as there isn’t that much to see there, a couple temples and just ruins.

The back entrance to Hoa Lu.

After a quick lunch outside Hoa Lu, we continued on to the Chua Bai Dinh.  This huge Buddhist complex was actually finished in 2010, so it is a new place, which we didn’t realize as we were walking through it; I happened to bring a page from Lonely Planet that informed us.  We walked up steps past 500 statues of enlightened Buddhists, and thousands of 15 inch tall golden Buddhas set into the walls.  Toward the top was the main attraction, a 13 story pagoda, the biggest in Southeast Asia, where we could ride an elevator to the top and have a beautiful view over the Chua Bai Dinh and surrounding countryside.  We also got to see the Bell Tower with a 36 ton bell hanging from the ceiling and a 70 ton drum sitting on the floor.

The 500 arhat statues (enlightened Buddhists.) That little brighter gold spot
is the end, up several stairs.

Inside the complex.

13 story pagoda!

Inside the pagoda.

View from the top of the pagoda!

At the top of the pagoda. 

The 36 ton bell with its ringer log to the right.
Unfortunately, the log was locked down, so I didn't get
to ring it.  :)

The sun was just starting to set, so we decided to head back to the hotel.  It was about a 40 minute ride back, and maybe 5 minutes into our ride when twilight set in we were absolutely PELTED with bugs.   I rode the whole way back with my eyes squeezed to slits and my mouth pressed closed.  Gross!

Since several of our friends attending the conference were wanting something different than Asian food already, we went to a burger place called Chookies.  I was starving, so I ordered the Chookies Special, which was a giant burger with a fried egg and bacon on top.  After taking a couple bites, Gavin said, “Why do I always insist on ordering a burger in foreign countries?  It’s never good.” The meat of the burger was impressively tasteless.

After that we crashed into bed early, as we are still a bit jet lagged and catching up.  Tomorrow I’ll take the motorbike out again and explore some more!