Scenic goat route

Saturday in Ninh Binh! The BIG sightseeing day.

After a lovely homemade breakfast with the hotel owners father (or uncle?) and her 2 month old baby, I was ready to venture out on the road with Mr. Crappy for a second day of sightseeing. The weather was sunny. The forcast promised me I would sweat again today in 35 degrees celcius.

On today's agenda was a slightly longer drive to Tràng An landscape complex, a UNESCO world heritage site and later in the afteroon the Bái Đính pagoda.

The Tràng An river/cave/limestone mountain complex can only be seen by taking the official UNESCO boat tour lasting 3-4 hours.

The tour had spectacular scenery, peaceful temple areas and claustrophobic caves. The tour I chose took us through a 350 m long cave where we all had to sit down on the floor of the boat because the cave was so low and narrow. And depending on what tour you took, there was a chance to catch a glimpse of King Kong himself. The movie Kong: Skull Island had a few scenes filmed in Tràng An.

After 4 hours in a boat Mr. Crappy and I drove to a local restaurant where I tried goat meat. Ninh Binh is very famous for its goat meat and you see goats (the live kind) and restaurants with with pictures of goats everywhere. I quickly learned that goat is "dê" in Vietnamese. You can even buy a whole skinned goat from the side of the road.

In Bái Đính it took me ages to find the parking for the temple area. After a good 30 min of searching I finally found it and later laughed at how I could have missed such a big entrance gate to begin with. The temple area was huge and I could easely have spent half a day there.

And now we get to the part where Mr. Crappy really earned his name. I had forgiven him for a small incident earlier, when the seat came off while I was filling the tank with gas. But now he didn't start. Just dead! It took two security guards to kick start Mr. Crappy. And the same happened again at a restaurant later in the evening. Good thing the weekend was coming to an end, according to Mr. Crappy.

Ninh Binh, I will miss the scenery and the lack of traffic!

Tràng An UNESCO tour

Tràng An

Yes we went through this 320 m long cave

One of many temple areas on the tour

Sweating like a pig

Mr. Crappy

Stupa at Bái Đính 

View from Bái Đính pagoda

Buddah at the end of the stairs