Tam Coc - Days 187-189
Having just come from Thailand (beautiful, great food, but very catered towards westerners), we wanted to avoid the super touristy scene. That meant no Ha Long Bay for us this time. Plus, we didn’t really want to sit on a bus for 7 hrs and be herded around all day. We opted for “Ha Long Bay on land” instead - Tam Coc! And we decided to turn the adventure into an overnight trip. Step 1: Hop on the train to Ninh Binh. Super easy and smooth train ride.
A quick 10 min cab ride from the Ninh Binh station and we were at our hostel in the tiny “town” in Tam Coc. Still touristy, but not as bad as Ha Long. During our research, the same restaurant kept popping up with raving reviews - Father Cooking. One reviewer even said it was the best food he’s had in Vietnam. Naturally, we wanted to see what all of the hoopla was about. Results: meh. Nothing too special and certainly not the best we’ve had in only our few days in Vietnam. Ben was able to try to local speciality (mountain goat) though and seemed to enjoy it.
First funtivity of this little adventure was to rent bicycles and check out Hang Mua view point. Our hostel usually has bikes to rent out but the owner said something about them all being recently broken? Not quite sure about the details, a bit of a language barrier there. But next thing I know, he scampers off to the hotel next door and eventually comes back with 4 bikes. Repaired? Borrowed? Stolen? I’ll never know. But we took off nonetheless. It was a nice and easy bike ride through the rice paddies, which just looked like brown mud pits this time of year, but still beautiful with the limestone pinnacles jutting out in the background. Would have been quite peaceful had it not been for Ben’s loud and squeaky bike.
Hang Mua was really nice and once we caught our breath from conquering the white-dragon staircase, we were able to enjoy the gorgeous 360 view from the top. Rice paddies and limestone pinnacles for miles (kilometers here, I guess). Plus, we got a birds-eye preview of the river tour that we would be doing tomorrow!
It was still early when we got back to town so we decided to bike a bit more to explore. Ended up finding this little hidden gem of a place - Chookies Beer Garden. Solid music, decent beer list (for Vietnam), outdoor seating, good vibes. Not sure why this place is so secretive! We grabbed some drinks and tasty apps and played some cards until it started to get too dark for us to be out biking around. Since there wasn’t really much for us to do after dark in this little town, we went just went to bed (but not before being made fun of by the youngster of the group).
We wanted to get out on the river as early as possible to (1) avoid the expected mid-morning rain and (2) hopefully be the only ones out on the water. Success! It started out super quiet and peaceful, just our two boats and the local ladies paddling us along (with their feet by the way, super crazy). But then the local ladies decided it was a good time to catch up on all of the topics so they started yelling to each other across the river. Went from peaceful to amusing to frustrating. Ben
attempted to quiet them many times, even using birding as an excuse once. They’d pipe down for a few minutes then start right back up, full force. Oh well, at least the boat ride was really beautiful. It was overcast day morning, which made it a bit eery with clouds slowly enveloping the limestone formations. We passed through three caves (some of which were quite small requiring Ben to duck his head) before turning around. Towards the end of our ride, ladies from a village up the river were using the same type of boats to get into town to go to work. So we joined in their little commute on our way back - river rush hour!
We got back to our hostel early enough to still have the free breakfast, then packed up and headed into Ninh Binh for coffees while waiting for the train back to Hanoi (which was delayed due to rain, good thing we went out on the river early). It was Hayley’s last night before heading back to the real world and we had a full evening planned! Back to Bun Cha Tra for what has become my favorite Vietnamese dish (I believe Andy would agree) then back to the main intersection where everyone sits in tiny plastic chairs along the road to enjoy drinks and music. We were half a drink in and starting to play some Cambio, when we were frantically told by the owner to stand up and hide the beers while they put away all of the plastic chairs. A police car rolls by and as soon as they pass, we’re able to sit back down and resume. Turns out these little patio bars aren’t exactly legal. This happens a few more times and started to get really annoying so we packed up and left. Next on the agenda was a bar that advertised “live jazz starting at 8pm on Thursdays”. We (minus Ben who wasn’t feeling well) show up around 8:30 thinking we’d be late to the show, but the “band” was just starting to set up and only a few tables were full. Skeptical, we decide to go have one more street drink (which was interrupted by a loud and large Bostonian) before giving the bar another shot. They had finally started playing when we returned but I wouldn’t really call it jazz. The band only had one guitarist and one keyboardist (who was actually quite good). We all agreed that it’s not really a jazz band unless there is at least one horn/sax. We politely listened for a while then the 3 of us left, which was about half of their audience.
Our last day in Hanoi! Unfortunately, Ben still wasn’t feeling well so spent most of the day in bed. After grabbing a tasty brunch, Tayley (aka Haylor) went off to explore another part of town while I walked around our little neighborhood and did some last minute road trip research. Ben eventually felt better in the evening so we grabbed a last chance banh mi at Banh Mi 25 then went to find Hayley to say our sad goodbyes. Later that night and pretty much at the last minute, I finally went back to the phone repair shop (if you recall, I hadn’t had a phone since the rainy drive from Koh Lanta almost a week prior). It works! Phew, now I’ll be able to access the map during our drive down the coast. Which starts tomorrow. Eek.