Ninh Binh, Vietnam

Floating down the river

Our next destination in the north of Vietnam was a place called Ninh Binh.  The area is known for its karst formations, similar to Halong Bay, except they are inland and pop out of the rice paddies rather than the ocean.  It was said to be quite scenic so we headed there to spend a few days.

Once in town we rented bikes to an area called Tam Coc, which is a river that passes through three caves while winding its way amongst the limestone hills.  Once we arrived at the river we bought boat tickets for the hour long ride.  Our guidebook warned us about the locals and the stunts they would pull to get a couple of extra bucks from us.  In fact, it was almost like a script – it went exactly as we read about it. 

Daron helping to row the boat

We bought our boat tickets and were led to the next available boat driver/rower.  There were three rows of seats in the small boat – the back one is for the rower, Daron sat in the middle row with the rower’s helper, and I was alone in the front seat.  Our rower was a fairly young gal – again, like in other areas of Vietnam, most of the boat rowers were women.  Her helper was a much, much older woman – possibly her mother or grandmother.  The rower in back has two oars, and mostly rows with her feet.  It looks like she’s on a bicycle exercise machine, except she’s rowing a boat!  The older woman has one paddle for rowing on her side of the boat.  After we’d been going a short distance, I looked behind me at Daron and saw that he was paddling too.  The older woman had handed him a paddle and put him to work!  It gave me a giggle to see him paddling away next to the older lady. 

Boat rower using her legs to row

The scenery was beautiful, and was definitely worth all the hype.  Tam Coc literally means “three caves,” which makes sense because our boat went through three caves during our trip on the river.  They were a bit eerie to travel through.  The fun really began once we reached the turnaround point – it went just as our guidebook said it would.  At this point there are about ten boats waiting to pounce on us, all of them vendors with boats full of goodies (drinks, snacks) they want to sell.  One of them rowed over to our boat to try to sell us anything and everything.  After we bought a small box of cookies, she wanted us to buy the rower a drink, since she worked SO hard and MUST be thirsty.  We read in our guidebook and also online that the rower will sell it back to the vendor for the money, so we declined to buy her a drink.  After that we started rowing back to where we started.  While on the way, the older rower in our boat pulled out a box of her own that was under one of the seats.  It was full of items she had embroidered, mostly tablecloths.  They were very nice, but nothing that we wanted to buy and carry around with us, so we had to decline.  She was very persistent, and not very happy when we kept saying “no, thank you.”  Finally the box was put away and we continued on our way.  As we got closer, they both started saying “tip, tip” (funny which few english words they know!).  Daron told them he’d think about it once we got to shore – I think he wanted to make sure they weren't going to flip the boat over on us!  Once we were off the boat he gave both of them $1, which they both grumbled over.  I don’t think they thought it was enough.  It put a dark cloud over the experience, with all of us unhappy at the end.  Our guidebook even predicted this part too – it said that no matter how much you spend or give, it’s never enough to make the rowers happy.   Such a shame, because it’s a beautiful area and the first part of the boat ride was so pleasant.  At least we have good memories of the first part of the ride, even if it did go downhill after that.  And they did put my hubby to work, which is always a good thing!  J