The adventure continues
During our journey we stayed in Ninh Binh, the former capital city, where we had a tour guide show us around. There we saw the temple of the first king of Vietnam, and hiked to the top of the highest peak to see as far as the eye can see (through the smog).
We also rowed along the Trang An river, under towering cliffs and through a 1km-long tunnel. (It was a 5km+ route in total, so fortunately we had a river guide who did all of the actual rowing 😅)
Around one bend we happened upon a movie set — the Korean film crew did their best to prevent us from taking pictures, but I found several on E’s camera…
The people in Ninh Binh were mostly very friendly, but good food was harder to find. Every hotel, restaurant, or coffee shop had a 5-star rating, so it was hard to tell what was actually good quality… At one lunch place the server joked about us catching our own fish in the murky river, but I realized they probably weren’t joking when we really did get fried fish for lunch.
Our “homestay” in Ninh Binh was less than charming (with unappetizing food, roosters crowing at all hours, and no running water on our last day), so we were eager to head to our next location.
We had tempered our expectations, but were pleasantly surprised by a large, comfortable, newly constructed hotel on Cat Ba island.
Actually, there were a lot of new developments on the island…the whole town was practically under construction. At a quick glance it looked like a replica of a “town center” like you see in the states: nice townhouses surrounding a plaza with a water feature, a walking path, and some shops. But on closer examination the townhouses were completely unfinished on the backside, the water fountain had a giant extension cord running over the sidewalk to it, and half of the exercise equipment on the walking path had broken or was never finished setting up.
We did not have a tour guide while on the island, so we floundered around on our own. When plans to kayak fizzled out, we hiked along the coastline and then the kids happily played in the pool for the rest of the afternoon.
The foam party at the indoor pool was probably the highlight for G!
On Christmas Eve, Santa filled the kids’ socks with shower caps and razors (plus a few treats from home), and then on Christmas morning they got manicures before heading to our final stop of the journey.
…Not the traditional Christmas by any means, but definitely memorable!
Gorgeous boat trip and islands!
Oh… A K-drama was being filmed??🇰🇷
I’m interesting how you can’t believe all you see: everything is a five star restaurant? No backs to the front façades of the building buildings? Etc.
Thank you for sharing. Very interesting!
yall will never forget this xmas!