Ninh Binh

Ninh Binh 2/21/2025-2/24/2025

After coming off the hellish travel day to Hanoi, I thought it might be best to book travel that was super convenient. I scheduled a VIP bus that would pick us up right outside out hostel and drop us off right at the next one. This was probably the cheapest way to get from one place to another. We thought about taking the train but it only would have saved us 10 bucks but when you factor in the rides we would have to get to and from the train stations it exceeded that 10 dollar savings. And would have been overall more exhausting. 

We made it to the nice homestay we had booked. After a conversation that was carried by google translate, the room we were to stay in had a water and electrical problems. Because of the language barrier I thought we were just gonna get a different room at the same place but what she was saying was we were gonna stay at a different location. This was a little inconvenient but we did get a sweet discount and a motorbike rental for super cheap which proved to be essential in this area.

We got on this motorbike and just decided to drive to a coffee shop that was in the middle of nowhere. We ended up going down the most beautiful road I had ever seen. There were vertical limestone cliffs that were saturated with green vegetation. They were accompanied by low hanging clouds that made them less visible but enhanced their beauty.

We found the coffee shop and it had a tremendous view of these cliffs and was situated around a pond. Insane view for a cup of coffee that was maybe a dollar. 

That night, we did about a 30 minute motorbike ride to a night market. There were shops and restaurants that lined this river and at the end of it were was this big rock you could climb up with a temple on top. Got a sweet view of the river and shops below. 

Photo: Half Way Up Dragon Hill

Photo: From The Base of Dragon Hill

Photo: The Dragon on Top of Dragon Hill

The next morning we wanted to hike up to the top of Dragon Hill which is a tall hill with pagodas and, you guessed it, there's a dragon on top. Many of the viewpoints were a bit compromised by the misty clouds that seems to stay stagnant. Still some breath taking views from what we could see. Once we got to the dragon, there were no more steps or a clear path so we improvised one on the wet rocks and reached the end of the dragon.

We had a boat ride reserved for the afternoon in Traing An. It was a row boat tour. there was one woman rowing in the back and we were paired up with another couple. I liked being in a row board because it was a hell of a lot quieter than the engine boats we have been on. Since there were 5 people in this boat and only one person rowing, there were little paddles that the rest of us could use to help move us along quicker. It was really neat navigating tighter spaces of the water route in between the steel limestones. The best part of the experience came about half way through the ride where we entered a cave that stretched on for a kilometer. There were tight portions where we had to put our heads down and duck out of the way. There massive stalactites hanging from the ceiling. and there were random cave rooms that would open up and be completely massive. Sometimes not being able to see the ceiling above. Very cool and relaxing experience.

We felt like we were getting too much culture so for dinner that night we went to a pizza restaurant got a burrata pizza. Expectations were so low but the pizza was actually insane. Brick oven pizza with arugula, prosciutto, and a ball of burrata cheese. Fucking so good.

Photo: Bich Dong Pagoda

We only had one full day in Ninh Binh but I feel like this is all we needed. The final morning we motorbiked over to Bich Dong pagoda. Awesome name lol. This was built in the 1700's by two monks. Later an addition to this place of worship was built inside of a cave. It was pretty nuts to see a little house just residing in a cave.

Both days we got some misty rain as we were riding the motorbike around. This was good preparation for what was to come.

The afternoon we headed back to Hanoi to stay in one last hostel before our trip to Ha Giang. There was a guitar in the lobby area that was missing a B string and the A string could not be turned up so I tuned it down to an E. I always get so stoked when I come across a guitar on my travels. I was able to write some riffs with this new tuning I invented. 

Our last night a night market set up in what seemed to be a matter of minutes. We strolled through it and ended up getting some pho and spring rolls. There were some conversations about how this loop was gonna go. Should we back out of riding the bike ourselves, should we get easy riders to do the driving for us, would this put us in a better group, etc... There were pros and cons to each decision. In this moment, I was thinking about just doing the easy rider because it is technically not legal for me to ride a motorbike in Vietnam due to the type of international driving permit the US provides. The only way for it to be legal as an American was to obtain a local Vietnam drivers license which is a total bitch to obtain. So Driving ourselves, we were going to be subject to fines from the police. I'll talk more about this on the actual Ha Giang Loop post. See you then.