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 We
had a very long travel day, we cruised back to Halong
City by boat, had lunch, then crammed into a minibus 3
1/2 hours back to Hanoi. We waited at our hotel for 2
hours then to another mini bus that took us to the "bus
station". Apparently we were on a local bus - we were
the only white faces on board, actually was refreshing
to travel with locals for a change. The music was so
incredibly loud on the bus and they played cheesy 80's
martial arts movies for about 10 min at a time then
played another, it was all in ADD fashion. It took
another 3 hours to reach Ninh Binh and at first glance
of the town I was filled with regret. But the bus
dropped us off right in front of our hotel and was the
nicest hotel so far - it even had a REAL shower w doors
and everything! We have only seen shower hoses next to
the toilet. Our day in Ninh Binh turned out to be an
absolute delight, the highlight of our time in Vietnam
and up in the ranks for all of Southeast Asia.
The following day we hired drivers on motorbikes for the
day and took off after brekky . GD: We started our tour
with a boat ride do the river around Tam Coc. It was a
little like Halong Bay with giant limestone formations
jetting out from the earth. I didn't have a hat so our
driver got me a loaner for the open boat. It was a
typical conical hat mostly worn by women, so our driver
and the woman on the boat kept calling me 'madame'. The
scenery was beautiful and we went through several caves
cut through the rock by the river. The river was
surrounded by rice paddies and some small stone homes
built against the rock. At the end of the last cave, a
rowboat full of cold drinks and snacks comes up and the
woman guilts you into buying drinks for your rower
guides. On the way back the woman on the boat took a
break from rowing to show Traci all sorts of goods she
had made (doilies and embroidered table cloths) Apart
from the hawking of goods, the boat ride was relaxing
and serene.
 Next they took us to temples and pagodas. The first one
had some stairs and the temple was built into the cave.
We continued up the stairs and there was a school field
trip or something and they would follow us with their
camera lenses, for once we were the exotic ones. We had
lunch, I had the Pho Bo, beef noodle soup, its their
specialty dish and so far we have been unimpressed with
the cuisine here. Other travelers rave about the food
here, but ours has all been bland so far and we don't
like seafood
Anyway, after lunch we drove through rice paddies with
mountain backdrops and saw workers and water buffalo, it
was really cool. Our next stop, mua cave where our
drivers picked us some exotic fruit. Then we climbed 500
steps saw goats along the way and took several breaks
from the heat and humidity. The view was totally worth
it - we saw Tam Coc Cave and all the tourists on
rowboats and the other side was mountains and rice
paddies. They took us to Ban Long Pagoda, it was a quick
look around and a peak at a monk chanting. The last stop
was Hoa Lu Temple, the old capitol. We were very tired
at this point so just slowly walked around and looked at
the temples and people playing soccer in the field.
 On the way back to the Hotel we drove through villages,
felt like we were in a movie. Some of the houses had
stone walls and thatched hay roofs and they had stone
walls that made corridors and opened up into small
courtyards. As we drove past all the kids would yell
"Hello!" out to us, it was really cute and they tend to
do that a lot. We were checked out of the hotel already,
so we just hung around had dinner and a shower and
waited for our overnight sleeper bus. The bus ride was
12 hours down to Hoi An, we were stuck all the way in
the bumpy back, not a good sleep at all. And it was
ridiculous, the bus was so packed that people had to
sleep in the aisles, which made it tricky to go to the
toilet. We noticed that the passengers on the floor were
all local. But from other bus ride stories we have
heard, this one was cush in comparison.
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