I had to take a break between Central and Northern Vietnam blog posts….there was so much going on in the North, it was way too much to blog on the fly – so this one is super late but I’m sure it will be great!
We left a day early from our fancy villa in Vinh, to be closer to the Vinh train station; It was a whole $26 to stay at a hotel by the station for our 10 am departure to Ninh Binh. If you have never heard of Ninh Binh… I recommend you google or YouTube it…this was our life for the next 3 days! It was a 4 hour train ride from Vinh to Ninh Binh city where I took a Grab car and the luggage to the hotel… Todd followed behind on the scooter. After we checked in, we had a few hours before sunset so we headed a few km up the road to our first stop at the National Park. Honestly the Google told us nothing about the park and we had no idea what the purpose of the park was…which is also SO VERY Vietnam (you don’t know what things are, why its here or where the entrance is), but this was worth the trip! The main attraction is the Bai Dinh Pagoda – which is the largest buddhist temple in SE Asia. along with that there is 700 acres of buddha’s, pathways and so many stairs to buildings and park area’s, a giant bronze Buddha and a 13 story stupa. Here is an overview video: Bai-Dinh-Pagoda.html
We spent 3 full days in this area where we also went to the ancient capital where we saw ruins back to the 10th century, scooted over to the Mua caves and climbed the 500 steps to see the view from up top. Stopped for a nacho snack and then toured they the rice Paddy’s in Tam Coc. Ninh-Binh-pics.html
This was a very quick trip and before we knew it we were on our VIP van heading to Sapa. It was only a 325 km trip, but took 8 hours and 3 van’s to get us there! Once again, if you have never heard of Sapa, give it a google…we were not disappointed that we spent 3 days here. It was like living in a YouTube video. On day 1, we took 2 funiculars and a gondola to get to the Fansipan mountain peak. It is the tallest mountain in Indochina -3147 meters high. ( Going-up.html ) ( Rhododendrum-walk.html )
Also rented a scooter to tour the tiered rice paddy’s (which is what the area is famous for) Also went to see the famous Rong May Glass bridge. It was quite the ordeal to actually get up to the bridge. In true Vietnamese style, the organization of parking, shuttle bus, ticket purchase, another shuttle bus queue, shuttle bus, ticket scanning, elevator queue line, elevator up took over 2 hours! We did meet Jimala and Donna (mom and daughter) from Kazikstan in line and so the 2 hours wasn’t so grueling. It didn’t help that we lost a ticket, probably on one of the shuttle buses; of course you pay cash and there is no receipt. So luckily the ticket scanner girl came to our rescue and issued us another ticket.
This park is not only a 700 meter glass bridge (with randomly broken panes) it also has zip line, walking across a valley on a swinging bridge 200 feet in the air and bike ride 200 feet in air. There are lots of weird stairs and platforms to no destinations, other than to take pictures. Somehow Todd convinced me we should do the bike ride and we thought they were drone videoing us but they weren’t and we don’t have evidence of us doing it. I was beyond terrified to take my hands off the handrail to get the camera out. We survived …. Barely. The last stop of the day was (of course) to a waterfall before heading home in a cloud.
Our last full day in Sapa started off with rain so we were delayed but eventually we scootered 1 km down to Cat cat village. Spent 3 hours here and it was not what we expected, it was so much more! Sapa-and-cat-cat.html Sapa-pics.html
We left Sapa and took the daytime 7 hour train ride to Hanoi (300 km). Decided to upgrade to VIP berth this time for such a long trip. The cost for both of us was $120, included cheap snacks, water, pop and pillows and blanket. We shared a bathroom with other VIP’ers. Worth every penny in the end. When we pulled in to Hanoi, we were the train that everyone on train street came to see! ( The train.html ) Here is a quick tour of our hotel: Hanoi-hotel.html Walked around Old Quarter after we dropped off laundry and ended up at a cool coffee shop that I saw on Instagram, it was down the street from our hotel called Hidden Alley cafe. ( Hidden-alley-coffee.html ) Once we were caffeinated, we went to get tickets for the world famous (1000 year old) Water Puppet Show. Our tickets were front row and we fully expected this to be super Hokie but it wasn’t! There were 16 mini shows about Vietnam culture. It. Was. Amazing. ( Water-puppets.html )
Our final day in Hanoi was a visit to the dentist, a walk to see St Joseph’s cathedral built in 1886 before we headed on time to train street to see the train up close! We were also able to see the Hanoi Hilton (Hoa Lo Prison) and had time to shop before we left. Big names like North Face, Arc’teryx, Solomon were all here – so prices were very reasonable!
It was a fun trek to Cat Ba island by taking a bus, a sketchy ferry and another bus before they dropped us at our jungle bungalow. We were hoping for a couple of sunny beach days on Cat Ba, but that didn’t happen…we did get warm weather, just no blue sky or sun. Here are pics of our time: Hanoi-cat-ba-and-halong-pics.html We rented a scooter here and toured all parts of the island and did at least 1 jungle trek before we took another ferry to the main Halong Bay cruise terminal so we could board our 3 night 4 day cruise! This was a great time….there was a very strict daily itinerary of activities and food. We hiked, climbed, boated, kayaked, swam and ate more than our body weight in food over the 3 nights we were on board. Cruising-ha-long-bay.html They even had a birthday celebration for Todd on the second night. We departed the boat and headed back to Hanoi for our flight to Vientiane – Laos here we come!
Your travelogues (sp?) are amazing and bring to life places and people to life. Truly amazing adventures you are having!