Ninh Binh - Ha Long Bay on Land in Vietnam

Hey, this is Cindy. Welcome back to my channel. This video is part three of my three-part series on my travel journeys in Vietnam. Part one was about my trip out to Sa Pa and part two was about the overnight cruise on Ha Long Bay. Part three, this video, is about my day trip out from Hanoi to the province of Ninh Binh, also known as Ha Long Bay on land. Now, unlike my part two on the overnight cruise on Ha Long Bay, where I forgot a lot of details on how we booked that trip, I can actually tell you in detail the itinerary and booking of this trip out to Ninh Binh because I have receipts. I found the itinerary and booking site we used in my email, so I can actually link you to the tour. Now, I don't know if they will be running the same tour by the time you go check it out, but at least it will be in the description box for your reference. We used the travel booking site called Kluk. The company basically provides a platform that offers travelers a curated selection of activities and attractions in Asia. And no, they did not sponsor this video. We simply found it through referrals. Although, Kluk, if you're watching this video, let me know. Let's talk. You know, there's potential. It'd be pretty cool. Anyways, so we found a day trip tour out to the city of Hoa Lu and Tam Kok River in the province of Ninh Binh and we said, hey, this looks pretty good, so we booked it. Ninh Binh is a province about an hour and a half drive away from the city of Hanoi. I first found out about it by browsing through tagged pictures of Vietnam on Instagram. I really wanted to sit on one of those paddle boats and drift across the river surrounded by limestone caves and rice fields. This place is known as Halong Bay on land because the land form is very similar to that of the limestone islands on Halong Bay, but instead of it being out in the sea, it's inland. It's a really unbelievable sight to traverse through and it's so serene and soothing to bike through as well. Now, let me walk you through the actual tour. In the morning, we were picked up by our tour bus in Hanoi and we headed out to the ancient royal capital of Hoa Lu. We visited multiple historical landmarks and temples in the area, including those of the Dinh and Le Dynasty. One really important note if you want to visit, make sure you wear a bottom piece of clothing that's past knee length. The longer the better because it is considered offensive to visit Vietnamese traditional religious houses with a lot of bare skin, especially your legs. I totally forgot since it was close to summer and I wore shorts so I almost could not go into the temple, but thankfully the tour guide was able to get those of us who forgot cloths and blankets to cover up our legs so that we did end up going inside. After visiting the temple, we went to have a buffet lunch at a local restaurant and then we headed to a place right by the Tam Coc River to go biking. We had about an hour to bike through the mountains and rice fields and pass by some small villages along the way. It was honestly so incredible to visit. After biking, we got on a bamboo paddle boat and traveled along the Tam Coc River. We passed by quite a few large overarching limestone cave formations right above us. There were also a few ladies along the river selling people snacks and fruits on their boats. You can ask your boat rower to stop temporarily if you wanted to buy anything. Just don't forget to take your trash with you because we saw a few ladies going up and down the river scooping up trash from visitors and that was honestly really sad to see. We rode the boat for about two hours and returned to the place where we first got on. We then got onto the bus and headed back for Hanoi. The whole trip was about 10 hours and we got back to the city just in time for dinner. Overall, it was a super nice trip and I highly recommend it. There are quite a few other options as well for day trips or multi-day trips even. A few of them actually take you hiking up to see the pagoda which I wish I had the time to go and see. You can check those out on Klook or I'm sure many other travel websites as well. I hope this is helpful to anyone who is visiting or may want to visit Vietnam in the near future. Don't forget to check out part one and part two of this three-part Vietnam series if you want more recommendations on where to go. A few bonus recommendations I have are the city of Hoi An and Ba Na Hills. I don't have much footage from those trips but there are lots of guides and videos on those two places on YouTube and Google. Thank you so much for watching. This is Zinzi and I'll see you next time.