Our second day trip out of Hanoi was to Ninh Binh province, around a two hour drive out of the city. Areas of Ninh Binh are described as Ha Long Bay on land, as there are the same impressive stacks of rock dotted around the landscape, similar to the islands of Ha Long Bay.This day was an unexpected highlight of our trip so far, while Ha Long has a lot of mentions in guide books and is famous worldwide for its beauty, our trip to Ninh Binh was a delight!
We booked the tour before we arrived, through Viatour, a website a lot of the local tour operators use. The trip cost around £45 each and included a stop at a pagoda, lunch, and a two hour boat trip through lakes and caves.
We were picked up from our hotel at 8.10am by Tom, our tour guide for day. There were five other people on the trip so it wasn’t as intimate as our trip yesterday!
Bai Dinh Pagoda
The drive from Hanoi to our first stop in the province took around 2 hours. Our first stop was Bai Dinh Pagoda – a privately built, modern collection of Buddhist temples. It is the largest and most extravagant pagoda in Vietnam.
We spent around two hours walking around on a guided tour led by Tom. We visited the bell tower (below) which has a bell over 5m tall, which can be heard from 10km away. It is only rung on special occasions, three times a year.
The walkways between the different temples were lined with statues of monks, who had passed away and were now in training to become Buddhas. Lots of visitors rubbed them for luck, so lots of them had worn away knees and bellies!
The statues were incredibly impressive, and a huge amount of time, care and craftsmanship had gone into creating each one. The statue below is of the founder of Buddhism in Vietnam. It was over 10m tall and the temple structure had to be built around it because it would never have been able to get through the door!
Next stop on the tour was lunch, a huge local buffet restaurant where all the tour operators were stopping to do the same thing as us. The lunch was nice, and there were a variety of vegetarian options available. I tried tofu in tomato sauce and fresh vegetarian spring rolls, which were nice but I probably wouldn’t pick them again.
Trang An
After lunch, we drove to Trang An, where we had a two hour boat tour through the lakes, going under caves in the mountains.
There was an incredible moment during the tour where we passed a floating bandstand, where a traditional Vietnamese band were performing – it was just magical! See the video below.Part way through, it started to rain, but we just put an umbrella up, put our raincoats on and just got on with it! It didn’t spoil the experience at all.
Trang An is also where they filmed one of the King Kong movies, so the film set is still set up on one of the islands. We had a quick look at the straw huts, and the wreckage of a plane used for the film, before getting back on our boat and finishing the tour.
We arrived back to our hotel in Hanoi for 6pm, so dinner was street food by the hotel and there was time for a cocktail in a nearby roof bar. Charlotte mastered chop sticks and I had one of the best meals I have ever eaten – aubergine stewed with honey and garlic.
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