Day One
It took only a few hours to get to Ninh Binh by bus from Hanoi. From the bus stop, we walked to our hostel as it was pretty close. Nico and I booked a private room in Go Ninh Binh Hostel, which was a nice place to relax for the night as we were tired from travelling and not feeling very social.
Go Ninh Binh Hostel
Good Wifi
Kinda clean/kinda dirty
Pillow had mold (not uncommon in SE Asia)
Big shower
Motorbikes for rent (but sold out while we were there)
Day Two
In the morning of our first 'real' day in Ninh Binh, Nico and I took our time getting ready. The hostel didn't have free breakfast so we walked into town to get something to eat. We stopped at the #1 restaurant on TripAdvisor, Trung Tuyet. I ordered sweet & sour pork and Nico got some kind of soup with rice porridge. The food was okay. I thought my pork was a little chewy. The service, however, was excellent and we guessed it was for this reason the restaurant had secured #1 spot.
After eating, Nico and I went back to the hostel to rent motorbikes, but they were sold out. So, we went across the street to rent one. The bike was only $5 (100,000 dong) for the whole day. Once we had our bike, we rode to Tam Coc National Park. It wasn't too hard to find our way to the park but there were lots narrow streets to navigate. Our first stop in Tam Coc was Hang Múa, which consisted of about 500 steps to a beautiful viewpoint looking over green rice fields and a river that wound between limestone peaks. Nico and I had never been so sweaty in our lives after climbing to the top. We spent some time at the viewpoint taking photos and flying the drone. The breathtaking scenery was definitely worth the sweaty trek.
After that, Nico and I drove the motorbike further into the park. The next place we stopped at was Bich Dong Temple, where a guy ripped us off by charging us for tickets we didn't need. I wasn't super impressed by the temple. It was very old, which was cool, but as we walked around the area, it felt like being in someone's backyard.
For the rest of our time in Tam Coc, we rode the motorbike around for a bit before driving back to our hostel. We had lunch at a place called Chookies, which was known for its western food, although, we both ordered Vietnamese.
That afternoon, Nico and I just relaxed at the hostel. For dinner, the plan was to go to another TripAdvisor restaurant located right across the street from the first one, but it was closed. Instead, Nico and I walked across town to Coffee Phong where we each got banh my (they were okay).
Day Three
In the morning, Nico and I decided to buy breakfast from the hostel. I had a banana pancake with honey. We were thinking about taking a boat tour down the river that afternoon but then it began to pour rain. We spent the day inside instead, relaxing, writing, and uploading photos.
Eventually, we wandered out of the hostel to grab dinner at Trung Tuyet again. Nico and I shared a bowl of beef pho. When we told our server that we were leaving tonight, she was super sweet and gave us a bag packed with snacks for the train ride (see what I mean about the service here?).
Eventually, it came time for us to take a taxi to the train station. We waited a little bit for the train to arrive and then boarded our sleeper car. We shared a cabin with two older Vietnamese men who had the bottom bunks. Nico and I climbed up into our beds and attempted to fall asleep.
Usually, I'm pretty good at falling asleep on trains but this time was very difficult considering the man below me was snoring loudly and the speaker above us would yell Vietnamese into our faces everytime the train made a stop.
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