Second day in Ninh Binh, it gets more beautiful

After arriving yesterday and seeing the ancient capital of Hoa Lu I was not very impressed, but today was so much better that I have to rank the district of Ninh Binh the second most beautiful to which I have been to so far in Vietnam(Ha Giang is still No.1).

The entrance up a small path to a hill with a temple at its foot.

Behind this was a path through a cave.

At the exit of the cave. The smell was delicious, but I can't say what it smelled of, it wasn't the usual smell of incense.

After climbing for a few minutes I reached a place from where I took these Photos. And again it paid of to conquer my fear of heights step by step :).

The entrance I paid was only for one of two places that were right next to each other. The other place was more expensive. I met a girl on the way and we decided to jump a wall and go to the other place as well. :) It was worth it, but not as much as they wanted for the entry. There was one place where people just threw away there garbage and no one took care of it.

At some point the path got to muddy and we had to turn around and the cave that was there was closed.

Driving on the street on my Motorbike was just amazing.

The boat tour I took was even better. For 200k Dong(7€). It was two and a half hours long. A middle aged to older woman was rowing the whole time. I was in a boat with a German couple and at some point we also helped her. The place is called Trang An. It is about 10km away from Ninh Binh City and the boat tour consists of 3 caves you go through one lower then the other 2 times you get to a place where you can walk and visit and dozens of places where you can take hundreds of pictures(I took about 100). Plus it is really well kept. I didn't see any garbage in the water or on land and the nature looks pure.

This was the entrance to the 3rd cave, not a joke. We had to sit in between the seats and watch our heads.

Until about 20 minutes into the tour there were other boats, a big group of tourists, in front of us, but after our first landing we lost sight of them. To all our liking.

For those of you who are interested in a little history about the place.

And the journey continues.

Back through another cave next to the last.

There was a glitch in the Matrix, but the agents didn't find us.

One of the most beautiful temples I have seen in Vietnam and maybe in the world.

Another one right next to it with horses.

This was where Kong Skull, the newest King Kong movie was filmed.

Very friendly natives.

And that's how we reached the end of the tour. The only thing that I didn't understand was this:

I went on my way and got to another interesting place called Trang An Cave. I bought a ticket at the entrance 30.000 Dong(1€) went through a long tunnel and got out to this place.

There was a small cave as well, but my hero was definitively the view.

After this it got dark and I went back to Ninh Binh. As long as I could see I still enjoyed the landscape. If you come to Ninh Binh you don't have to pay entrance or buy a boating ticket to have a nice view, because the normal landscape is already really nice. It's just that some places are even more amazing.

On the way I bought a Donut and at my hostel I ordered a pizza. My first in a very very long time. I enjoyed it a lot. I'm very extremely super happy to be traveling again. :)

Safe travel
Cosmin

PS: I will stay in Ninh Binh one or maybe two more day since I haven't seen everything that's interesting to me yet.