Choosing to pay $10 more to fly to Hanoi 11 hours faster than taking a train, was one of the best decisions we have made so far. By the time we arrived in Hanoi, it was around midnight and after the baffling car transfer full of house music played at the driver’s desired volume: LOUD, we arrived at our hotel with absolutely no idea where we were in the city. As much as we loved Saigon, we were sure in our heart of hearts that Hanoi was going to blow all that out of the water and just be awesome. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. Now, it wasn’t terrible and we can’t exactly figure out what we didn’t like about it, it just didn’t “wow” us.

We had heard about an organisation called Hanoi Kids, a group of university students who take you on a guided tour of Hanoi for free bar the admission costs and taxi fares. We decided to do a half day tour to take in the Ho Chi Minh complex, the Hanoi Hilton (jail that housed POW’s during the American War and Vietnamese during the French occupation) and the Temple of Literature. So, the following afternoon Thu and B were waiting in our hotel foyer ready to take us out. We had such a great day with the girls, they were extremely knowledgeable and genuinely interested in showing us around. I would definitely recommend using Hanoi Kids if you’re in Hanoi, it’s a great way to see the city and get a different perspective! I was so impressed with the amount of information that the girls knew about their own history and culture, it made me feel guilty that I don’t know as much as I should about Australia. Their eagerness and interest in the world was pretty inspiring, both are in the middle of their degrees, already know two languages and are on their way to learning a third. Puts me to shame…

We spent the rest of our time in Hanoi just walking around, exploring, eating and drinking and doing a bit of shopping whenever the mood struck us. As we had done in Saigon, we wanted to find some Bia Hoi. Unfortunately at the first place we tried, we couldn’t get served and were told to go across the road. We asked why and were told that they ran out of beer which we thought was a perfectly acceptable reason. However moving across the road we saw that they indeed did have fresh beer. So we ended up sitting with all the other white backpackers sitting directly opposite the local corner, musing why we weren’t served, maybe we looked too much like a grubby backpacker? Looking at our state of dress it was probably true =).

After a couple of days in Hanoi we decided to get out of the city for a little bit, so we headed to Ninh Binh, often described as Halong Bay on land. There is not much of a town in Ninh Binh, even though they have a population of over 1 million, what you go there for is the scenery. We spent our first day there at Trang An Grottoes; a beautiful waterway surrounded by what Wikipedia calls; “karst towers”, giant limestone formations eroded by time and weather to create breathtaking cliffs. We rode our bicycles there, paid money to park them (the young, male, parking attendant gave me free water, Tim got nothing) and then hopped in a little wooden boat rowed by a Vietnamese woman for around 90 minutes. When I say row, I don’t just mean just with her arms, the women here have perfected the art of leaning back and rowing with their feet, “unladylike” maybe but extremely efficient. We were taken into about 5 caves, with entrances so tiny I couldn’t help but whisper to Tim, “but it’s so small!”. “That’s what she said”, he whispered back. Trang An Grottoes is a great alternative to Tam Coc, frequented mainly by Vietnamese tourists.

After Trang An, we wanted to visit Van Long Nature Reserve which is quite similar to Trang An except it was much quieter and we didn’t see another tourist the entire 90 minutes that we were out on the water. Apparently there are monkeys at the reserve but unfortunately we didn’t see any, but we were treated to several sightings of beautiful birds and their clifftop nests along the way. The scenery was so stunning, it was surreal to be travelling through these flooded fields seeing only local people fishing with the only noise coming from the sound of our own rowboat. Definitely an experience we won’t forget.

We organised with our hotel in Ninh Binh to hire some motorbikes and drivers for the day. (As a side note, it still makes people laugh when we choose not to ride a motorbike and need to hire a driver.) As well as taking us out to Van Long, they took us to several other sites for the day; including Bai Dinh, a tortuous 300 plus steps to reach a massive gold Buddha standing at the top. Let it be noted that the giant Buddha was laughing. Laughing at us for our general lack of fitness. However, the view was beautiful and it was amazing that Buddha’s toes were about the same size as me. Our last stop was the old capital of Ninh Binh, Hoa Lu. We didn’t really explore the town as such, we just climbed a tall rocky outcrop, thinking it would be a pleasant stroll and perhaps a nice view.

My god, I can’t tell you how many times I cursed this mountain while walking up it or how many times I told Tim I was dying and had to sit down.

Halfway up we came across an 80 year old woman who had been watching us struggle to get up the mountain and had been laughing at us for the last five minutes. We ignored the laughing, said “xin chao” and kept walking but she jumped up and started to join us. And when I say join us, I mean she beat me up the stairs. She owned me, and didn’t even break a sweat. Once we had at last staggered to the top, with the elderly woman waiting patiently for us, she led us to a look out to see the view. It certainly was impressive and we enjoyed the reprieve. The elderly woman took pity on us and started fanning us, as we must have looked about ready to pass out. She soon jumped up and motioned for us to follow her. We were taken to a small shrine filled with flowers, incense and statues of Buddha. We were given 3 sticks of incense each (which we later paid for, this seems to be her income) and she then showed us how to pray. Not being religious types at all, Tim even less so, he motioned for me to pray and he would gallantly take a photo. However, the woman had other plans and forced the sticks of incense into his hands. After she had prayed and bowed, we were to copy her example and then light the incense and stick them into the sand at the shrine. I think we did ok.

While we were in Ninh Binh, we received an email from Thu offering to take us out for another day of sight-seeing. We immediately said yes and organised to see her the following day when we were back in town. We started with a fantastic lunch of Bun Cha; a soup filled with sliced pork and minced pork rissoles wrapped in herbs, shredded papaya and rice vermicelli noodles. So good! We then headed to the Museum of Ethnology where we spent a few hours wandering around learning about the different ethnic groups of Vietnam and even took in a water puppet show. This has to be seen to be believed, wooden puppets are sloshed around in the water with jerky movements while music and stories are piped in over the distorted PA system. I can’t say this was the finest theatrical performance I have ever seen but it is worth going to if you have some spare time and a sense of humour. Our last stop at the Museum was a interestingly decorated tomb surrounded by several, shall I say “graphic” wooden statues.

We finished the day off with Thu trying ‘cafe trung’; egg coffee. It sounds dubious at first but it was mind blowingly good. You can have it either hot or cold and it is basically egg whites whipped mixed in with a shot of espresso. I can’t describe how amazing this is, we ended up going back to get some more a few days later!

Next stop, cruising on Halong Bay because let’s be honest, we need a break ;).

Getting there: Flight from Hue to Hanoi. Best money we ever spent.

Staying: The Charming Hotel in Hanoi. The Ngoc Anh Hotel in Ninh Binh.

Tip of the trip: If you have the time, spend a night in Ninh Binh rather than the rushed, organised day trip that takes you to Tam Coc.

You can follow innerwesttosoutheast via email by entering your email address at the top of the home page or at the bottom of this page, below the comments section.

RSS feed: https://innerwesttosoutheast.wordpress.com/?feed=rss