Today is our last day in Vietnam, and in the South East Asia region. A few updates from previous sagas:
Jerry’s suit made it back to New Zealand! That was a win, since the tracking number stopped working one week in, and currently tells us that his suit is still in Da Nang.
My souvenir count currently sits at 6 items. I have added a dipping dish and two pieces of artwork into my backpack. I have sacrificed a t-shirt and some toiletries to make space. No regrets.
I spent the second half of Vietnam being a bit more careful with my caffeine intake, reducing my coffees (unless there was an egg coffee or a Cong Caphe coffee on offer). My efforts to reduce turned out to be completely futile, since I just discovered that the chamomile tea I’ve been drinking every night is actually a blend of 70% green tea and 30% chamomile, and therefore caffeinated. Oops.
Now, I’ll head back to where I left off in my last post.
Our train rolled into Ninh Binh station at a pleasant 3:15am. Luckily, my stomach took pity on me, and decided it was not going to act out on a train. Thank goodness for that! Our homestay hosts generously had a bed set up in their living room, for us to crash until the sun rose and we could check into our room (sneaky photo of Jerry snoozing).
Our accommodation in Trang An was the star of the show. We ended up somewhere a bit more rural, in a last minute decision to split our time between Trang An and Tam Coc, two of the villages in the area. At 3 in the morning, you could see dark outlines of a few karsts, but it wasn’t until sunrise that we realised we were in one of the most beautiful spots of our lives. Photos cannot do it justice. During our stay in Trang An, our highlight each day was biking in the valley to and from our homestay. We ended up spending way more time in our accommodation than planned, because the view was so surreal, and the location was so peaceful.
There are two famous boat rides in this area; one in Trang An, and the other in Tam Coc (there’s a third in Van Long, but it is more of a nature reserve for birds, and a bit further out). We decided to take the Trang An boat, based on our accommodation location, and some recent reviews stating that this was the better option post Covid. The scenery on the ride was incredible. It was otherworldly. Even with everything that’s about to come, I still think I would do it again. You are at the feet of some unreal limestone karsts, and the stalactites in the caves were epic.
We can report the Trang An boats are well organised and structured. We felt more confident that the rowers were paid a fair(er) wage. However, a couple of things worked against us. For one, we decided to go in the afternoon. It was raining in the morning, we wanted to sleep in and relax, and we decided we didn’t mind if there were a few more people. There were more than a few people… There were a LOT of people. The Trang An boat ride is the most popular thing to do in the region, and people come from Hanoi for the day, just to experience this. The lines of people hopping onto boats made it feel a bit like a Disney ride. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, just different to people’s visions of rural life.
With people comes variability. You don’t know who you’re going to get. And we got some wild cards.
The tranquility of the misty limestone karsts was slightly marred by the toddler on our boat, who jammed to “Zombie Finger” for a solid hour. For those less cultured than me, I will inform you that Zombie Finger is a remix of the Finger Family song, made famous (infamous) by the children’s TV programme Cocomelon.
It wasn’t just Zombie Finger on repeat; we were also serenaded by classics such as “Baby Shark”, and various versions of the “Yes Yes” song. If you know all of these songs, I am sorry for your eardrums. I like to think my line of work makes me particularly resilient to endless repeats of children’s music, but even I could not fight through the jingly tunes to remain zen.
Hey, it’s a toddler. You’re always going to get variability - as Jerry and I discussed, Cocomelon was preferable to screaming, which was a potential alternative. We had a good giggle, a bit of a boogie, and moved on. Unfortunately, as the toddler fell asleep and Cocomelon came to a blessed stop, we moved alongside a boat who brought a literal boombox on their boat, and played Vietpop so loudly, its bass shook the stalactites. At this point, Jerry and I alternated between considering jumping out of the boat and swimming home, and fits of uncontrollable hysteria.
We decided we’d try again in Tam Coc. The Tam Coc boats have gotten a bad rap recently, for some pressure from the rowers to buy things (including one where people were stuck in the cave, and the rower refused to row them out until they paid him more). This had coloured us against going, but we didn’t want to end our time in Ninh Binh with endless memories of Zombie Finger on repeat. This time round, we were prepared, and made a few changes to our game plan. We went early, within 10 minutes of opening, and we got our own boat. These tweaks paid off, and we had the river all to ourselves on the way there. As a bonus, the rice fields were recently planted, so we were pleased as punch. I only sang Zombie Finger once, for the memories.
Our rower did ask for a tip at the end, which we paid willingly. He offered to sell us some souvenirs he had squirelled under his seat, but he didn’t protest or hold us for ransom in a cave when we chose not to buy anything. So that was good!
This is definitely not a full blow by blow of which boat ride you should do in the region. They are not comparable experiences, since they were at completely different times, and we shared the boat on one and not the other. The Tam Coc boats are also crazy busy later in the morning. If you’re coming to the area, we recommend either ride, just try to go before the tour groups from Hanoi arrive! We’re also pretty lucky that these rides cost less than $20 NZD a person, so we could choose to do both.
We also enjoyed the Hang Mua viewpoint, where we watched the Tam Coc boats far below, and celebrated news that therapists in New Zealand’s education sector have gained a pay equity settlement! Thanks Helen for sharing the exciting news.
Tam Coc had a few more amenities than Ninh Binh, so we tried goat at one of the restaurants. Goat is a specialty of the region, which makes sense when you see the goats perched precariously on the edge of towering limestone cliff faces. We stocked up on three different Cosy wafer flavours; chocolate, pandan, and a mango and peach combo.
From Tam Coc, we headed to Mai Chau. This was another itinerary change for us. Originally we planned to head further north to Sa Pa, but for a few different reasons, we changed our route. Mai Chau is a rural area, famous for its valley of rice fields nestled in the mountains. On our bus ride to Mai Chau, we watched endless rice fields being planted, before we ascended into the mountains and lost all visibility. I really mean it - we could not see the car in front of us. Our driver was not concerned whatsoever, and continued to execute multiple-truck passes on the other side of the road. We made it down into the valley unscathed, but a bit wobbly on it.
In Mai Chau, we just stopped. We read, watched movies, went for multi hour strolls through villages and rice terraces, looked through the homemade textiles in the village, and drank endless cups of tea and hot water. The temperature dropped while we were there, and Jerry’s cast iron stomach finally gave in, experiencing his first bout of illness. He slept in three layers of merino, a puffer jacket, and a beanie. I want to clarify that it was cold, but it was still 14 degrees, not negative 14. Still, Mai Chau was a great location for us to grind to a halt. We still can’t believe how lucky we are that the rice fields were planted a week before we arrived - based on our timing, we thought the fields would be unplanted and muddy this time around. Our homestay offered communal dinners, so even when Jerry wasn’t up to eating, I had lovely company for my meals. We have some friends coming to stay at the exact same homestay later in the year, so we left them some sneaky treasures to hunt for…
We finish our time in Vietnam in Hanoi, the capital city in the north. We’ve clearly gotten comfortable here, as crossing the road has become natural, and the horn honking has faded into a background noise. I will probably get run over in the coming weeks, as I unlearn Vietnam’s road rules. We’re ramping up as we prepare to fly to Taiwan, to meet Janina in Taipei later today.
As we prepare to leave, we have been reflecting on our time here, as well as reflecting on our lives as a whole. We were already in a reflective mood, following our slower days in Ninh Binh and Mai Chau, but it also helped that Jerry and I both read a few books together, including Jerry’s recommendation, Die with Zero. It is (you guessed it) a finance book. You may not be able to tell, thanks to this swanky website, but Jerry and I don’t plan to make full-time travel a long term lifestyle. We’ve started chatting about what our life might look like after our year of travel. “What?” I hear you ask, “now? Aren’t you travelling for 9 more months?” Why yes, we are. But if you haven’t noticed, we never leave anything to the last minute. Spoiler alert for the next season of our lives - we’ll be back to explore more of South East Asia at some point. But for now, we’re heading north, and boy, am I ready for some dumplings.
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