Ninh Binh is considered the inland Ha Long Bay and it lives up to its reputation. It is stunning rocks/mountains jutting out of rice fields. The movie King Kong: Skull Island was filmed there and parts of it do feel like a hidden jungle island. Due to the compressed schedule we ended up booking a guided tour to Ninh Binh vs doing it in a few days by ourselves. In the end we hit the highlights that we were trying to do: bike in Ninh Binh, do a river tour, and hike to the top of Lying Dragon Mountain in Tam Coc. The plus is that the tour took care of the details with the minus that you have to follow their schedule, wait for other people in your group, and can’t do much exploring on your own.
We biked to Hoa Lư temple and city gate. This was the original capital of Vietnam with the temple dedicated to the first emperor. The mountains and rocks of Ninh Binh provided natural defenses against the Chinese while Vietnam fought for their independence. However, it didn’t provide much usable space so eventually the capital was moved to Hanoi.
We also biked through the countryside to see the mountains and the rice fields. Such stunning landscapes.
After lunch we headed to the Trang Na to take a boat tour along the rivers and caves of Ninh Binh.
The boat tour company was quite organized and had a theme park type of entrance and waiting lines. The whole launch area was one big arc along the river and people unloaded on one end, and the boats shuffled along the arc to load from the other end, kind of like a large curved PEZ dispenser. It made for a continuous line of boats and at first we were disappointed in all the safety orange life jackets filling the view all the way down the river. However, the mind blowing scenery soon took over and you started to forget all the other boats around you.
The tour included paddling through natural caves that really were tunnels that lead to the other side and open up other areas to see.
We went through 4 cave/tunnels with the longest one being 320m.
There was the occasional hidden temple along the way.
Each boat had a farmer that would row you the whole way but there were extra “paddles” if you wanted to help. The paddles were just pieces of cut plastic lashed to a bamboo stick and were only partially effective.
Definitely some “Oh Wow” views in there.
Our last stop was in Tam Coc to climb Lying Dragon Mountain. There were old stone steps leading up to the mountain with two peaks. The higher one had a shrine and a statue of a dragon on the top and the lower one had a pagoda on it. We only really had time to do one of them so we did the taller one.
Looking down at the river system that had some of the touring boats on it.
The dragon at the top and a flock of storks circling the mountain.
There were a few caves there as well that we didn’t have time to do, but overall it was a great day and we are so thankful we got to do it.