Firstly, thank god I’m not basing all my blog titles on puns like the days of yore. Not only would it be impossible to come up with them for half these places, but it would just be ridiculously confusing with the sheer number of place names; I have enough trouble remembering their actual name these days…

Day 77 – Trang An

Our outward bus from Cat Ba cared not for luxuries like cable cars, so after a short ferry journey in which the boat repeatedly missed the landing ramp, we were eventually off to Trang An, a very small village close to the better known city of Ninh Binh. The area is (and this is a trend you might notice throughout our time in Vietnam) famed for its karst rock formations; dramatic, conical and craggy, stuffed full of verdant trees and nature.

We arrived late-ish in tremendously beautiful Trang An and walked into the village for a delicious dinner of banh mi and planned our adventure for the following day over cold Hanoi beer.

Day 78 – Bike Ride in Trang An

We hired delightful bicycles with baskets on the front for our convenience, and set off towards a nearby attraction Tuyet Tinh Coc. Not the most auspicious start to the day, what COULD have been a natural tunnel, but was more likely blasted through with TNT, led through to a beautiful lake entirely surrounded by steep limestone peaks, with no other entry than the cave, that we could see. Sadly this beauty was somewhat marred by negligently poor decorative taste – plastic plants lined paved roads with tacky Chinese-style structures and stalls. We actually saw a fruit tree which had the fruit sellotaped on, surely a new low.

The coachloads of tourists were lapping it up, some dressed in traditional clothing and posing for their online audience. Regardless, never opposed to a bit of effort and exercise, we climbed the staircase to the natural cave, now temple. Behind the main shrine was a hidden tunnel that led down to a small natural pool. Mysterious.

We cycled onwards to the ‘Ancient Capital’ Hoa Lu. Indeed this was once the capital of the Dai Co Viet, the ancient civilization that would eventually conquer modern Vietnam. Built in the 10th Century, it only lasted 60 years as the capital before the next ruler moved it to Hanoi.

Wow, what a hidden gem this place is. I didn’t expect to see such an entire set of structures. The temples really struck me as TOTALLY different from what we’d seen in Cambodia (Khmer architecture at Angkor) and were more Chinese in style.

Dragons and the sun decorated the tiled roofs and wooden carvings embellished the ceiling around the joists, beams and battens. People had, of course, left offerings of coke, beer, sweets and snacks for, I can only assume, King Dinh Tien Hoang to whom the temples are entirely dedicated. If anyone can enlighten me otherwise, I’d be interested to know!

We travelled onwards on our bikes through the ancient capital, seeing different monuments scattered now amongst the town itself, colourful flags denoting where ancient capital sights could be beheld. One felt very Japanese with amazing bonsai trees inhabiting the courtyard like a tiny manicured forest.

We treated ourselves to salt coffee (very salty, very sweet, very yummy) in a tiny cafe, served by an endlessly smiling toothless man who brought us little fruits to snack on too.

Our cycling then ramped up a gear (unfortunately our bikes only had one) as we had some distance to cover. We planned to visit the world’s tallest pagoda, but via a scenic route around a large lake. We pedalled through amazingly beautiful lime green paddy fields with charming Vietnamese villages astride them, red flags waving from poles and houses dotted on roadsides.

The graveyards, with huge shrines nestles in the paddi fields, were astonishingly beautiful and I thought how lovely it would to be buried in one if only one could overcome being dead long enough to think about it.

Some of the riding was less pleasant, with short stints on main roads a necessity. Then we were on the lake and we saw the giant pagoda in the distance, and many many more built or being built in the vicinity of the beautiful lake. Kingfishers and other birds gracefully swooped by as we powered onward.

It was mother’s day! So at a gorgeous little restaurant we ordered half the menu and got stuck into some of our best food so far. We cheers’d to Lucy and other mums around the globe and even ordered a weird fruit wine for the hell of it. The kind waiter told us to try before buying and it was basically bitter whisky, so a sip was all we required.

We tried to find the entrance to the enormous pagoda, but we kept cycling the wrong way (courtesy of my exquisite directions) and we figured we’d seen it from afar and it was built in 2013 so not exactly historical stuff. We committed to cycling the wrong way and headed back towards home, again through the most wonderful villages.

We saw a goat on a ridge above a cliff and stopped to inspect it. Lucy saw a trail running up the cliff and decided she was going to climb up and have a look. Hearts on our mouths we watched her scramble to the top, where she reportedly found a perfect in-land lake with an island in the middle. Nice! As you might have gathered, Lucy is braver / more reckless than us cautious flowerpetals.

We made it home over 20km of cycling later. Not bad for bikes with only one gear! We had a swim and I sat down to edit some photos. Somehow not done with the day, Lucy and Billie headed out for a walk around local paddys. Crazy family I have married in to.

Day 79 – Climbing a hill and a wetlands boat tour

We hired scooters and were off into the wilderness once more. Well, we’d hoped to be, but sadly our first stop was back to back tourists all the way to the top of a hill. The view was undeniable, though, and worth the sweat.

We climbed back down in search of quieter climes, but first walked around a series boardwalks shaped as a giant lotus flower. There were lots of ducks and some wading birds in the distance and we wanted to check them out. They turned out to be fabulous Asian Open-billed Storks which, as the name suggests, have these crazy gaps between their bills which supposedly allow them to grip or crush snails more effectively. I got some cool snaps from a distance here, and got a bit arty with a B&W edit too.

Billie managed to slightly fall off her scooter at this point, but gracefully jumped off onto her feet as it fell over on the gravel. A bit of a scare, so we ditched the scooters (not literally) and got a taxi to Van Long Nature Reserve, brilliant for birds and with a chance to see Langurs.

Now, those of you who read Cat Ba know we saw Golden Headed Langurs and they’re super endangered and hard to spot. Well, Delacour’s Langurs are pretty similar, clearly closely related but have big white nappies and their heads aren’t gold, they’re also sadly very endangered with just 200-250 estimated in the wild. Also, their babies are fully ginger…

So we saw them, obviously! It didn’t seem like we would, as we passed other boats returning from the journey, our capitan (woman rowing the boat) was asking the others if they saw them (monkey being a noticeable word she used) and everyone returned her questions with grim shakes of the head. Not what you want to see. But then, I ask you, did those boats have Billie Hamilton-Moss aboard? Keenest eyed woman or man in all of Asia? Literally she should ditch it all and become a wildlife tour guide extraordinare. She saw em alright, up in the hill above us. We saw and watched through binoculars and to our delight they had a couple of youngsters, one slightly reddish teen mucking about in trees and an adorable, fully ginger baby in mum’s arms. Lucy is our monkey spotting lucky charm; the chances of us spotting both of those super rare critically endangered species was next to nothing. Indeed the Vietnamese pronounced her name Lucky whenever they read it from a piece of paper, so maybe they’re onto something.

We also saw this absolute specimen of a bird. Not sure what it is but it was massive, had a red eye and kept fluffing itself up as if look bigger or more intimidating.

And lastly another gorgeous Open-billed Stork wasn’t too shy, and poked around the water while I snapped a portrait. Looks like it found something here…

We got out very satisfied and I spent some time picturing the boats, lake and limestone hills. Truly a place of amazing nature, with very few others in on the secret.

We went back to the same place for dinner because the food was good, they had a cute dog and also the owner/waiter/host man hilariously gave everyone a big hug before they left – no exceptions. The dog got a bit too friendly that evening and after lots of belly scratches from us all started trying to hump my trainers. Naughty lad had us in stitches.

Day 80 – the Trang An boat tour

We were sad to be leaving Trang An today, and we’d purposefully avoided the main boat tour attraction having driven and cycled past it a few times and seen the sheer numbers of boats leaving the docks at any given time. That said, we had most of a day to kill and it was down the road. It would have been rude not to give it a go. But first, it was lunchtime and at the restaurant we had some kingfishers visit us and pose for some photos.

We checked out, left our luggage at the homestay and walked 20 mins to the boat departure complex on the river. There are three available routes to choose from and I asked for the quietest one. We bought three tickets and were herded with many others into small rowing boats, comfortably fitting the three of us and our rower.

Our route was blessedly quiet and, after the first stop, we split from the masses and had the route largely to ourselves. Thank GOD we didn’t miss this, it was definitely the highlight of Trang An for me.

The calm waterways twisted and turned in a maze around incredible karst cliffs and hills in different shapes and sizes. The golden light of the sun lit the hillsides gorgeously and mesmerized off the silky water.

We went through many a cave tunnel to reach new areas of water, some were glades of inland lake surrounded by tall mountains on all sides, only accessible via long watery tunnels. One such cave was 320 meters long and our rowing man navigated stalactites expertly so we hardly had to duck and move.

In one instance we came out of a cave and there was an incredible tree coming straight out the water, lit perfectly and the still water in front giving an exact reflection. I was thankful I had camera in hand, as it’s one of my favourite pictures of the trip so far.

Grebes chuckled around us, sometimes getting the zoomies and skitting around the water, sometimes ducking under to fish and appearing somewhere else a minute later.

Not only did we boat around, but we also disembarked at various temples, sometimes with short hikes up the hills to viewpoints. These were temples related to the ancient capital we’d seen previously and you can practically imagine the 11th Century rulers ordering intricately carved temples built among the stone landscape in what is quite clearly the most beautiful places they can find, despite any logistical obstacles including, say, said places being only accessible by long winding boat trips. Amazing stuff.

Three delicious hours later, we arrived back at port, and it was a tense race back to our homestay to make sure we got to our bus location on time. We needn’t have bothered; the night bus ended up being 2 hours late and an horrific experience overall, honestly. But I’ll save our late night arrival into Phong Nha till next time. Thanks for everything, Trang An!