Ninh Binh is known, by the locals, as the Ha Long Bay of the land. This place is unheard of by many foreign travellers, meaning that it is largely un touched. It is full of Vietnamese tourists because they know how truly wonderful it is!
What is Ninh Binh
Sheer beauty. Limestone mountains interspersed with rivers, lakes and numerous rice paddies. A land where pigs running around playing in the rice paddies is common. Cows and buffalos graze feely. Farm workers work by hand. Families spend the evening fishing together in the pristine waters. General bliss!
We arrived to this after 3 hours of travel
What to do
Trang An offers a two hour boat ride through caves, rice paddies, limestone cliffs and other natural beauty. This is a great way to start your trip to Ninh Binh area. I would recommend doing this very early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day, then sit back and relax.
Trang An
After Trang An - Bai Dinh Pagoda
An popular temple between mountains and rice fields. It is the largest temple complex in Vietnam. There are many temples on this site to explore. Just be careful with the amount of touts here.
*Bai Dinh
Other things to do
I will be very honest, we were very lazy and chilled and ate food for the rest of our trip here. But there are many other things to visit and see here, including a film set from the new King Kong movie at Tam Coc.
Where to stay
Nguyen Shack is the favourite in this area. We were late booking and ended up staying in Panorama Lodge which was good, but not as good as Nguyen Shack. Both these are bamboo huts looking out over rice fields, just outside the town. Very relaxing place to be.
Getting there
You can take a taxi or train from Hanoi or of course you can drive down yourself (which is what we did). It is best to have transport while you are there, it will be necessary to hire a scooter or bike when you arrive. A note on the drive from Hanoi: it isn't a pretty drive, it leaves Hanoi through a very industrial section and pretty much continues like this for half the journey. However, I like to drive there as I then have my own transport.