Vietnam 2013 Day 5 – Outskirts of Ninh Binh

It’s only Day 5 out of 18 and yet I feel like I’ve been on a great adventure already.

Today started out with breakfast at the hotel. Again, another wonderful baguette. With a simple omlette and salt and pepper and butter. I had some Vietnamese green tea with it and I was also given a plate of cut fruit of banana and pineapple.

They have Vietnamese cooking lessons, but I want to learn to make the baguette. All those I’ve created just do not taste and feel like the ones I’ve made. What do these Vietnamese do? All crusty and crumbly outside and soft inside.

So I hired a rider to take me on his bike for US$15 for the day. I clambered onto the motorcycle and we were off to Trang An, which is similar to Tam Coc, which has been described as a Halong Bay on land. Entry was 100,000 VND.

When you first start off at Trang An, it feels like a cattle market with all the Vietnamese jabbering on. 4 passengers make one boat, but 4 more Vietnamese joined my boat, making it 5 people. They were to talk almost the entire time. Still, between the sentences, I could still heard just how quiet the place is. And to see mountain goats on the slopes of these limestone rock and to hear birds singing.

The rower took us through some 6 grottoes and 4-5 pagoda / temples. I lost count. The whole trip took about 3 hours. It started to drizzle a really fine rain toward the end.

I chose to visit Trang An over Tam Coc as supposedly, Tam Coc is too crowded, with too many vendors hassling you to buy stuff from them. And later, when I went to a place to take the boats in Tam Coc, I also saw motorised boats plying the river. If there’s one thing not to like about Trang An is that the early and end sections are right next to the road. It’s run very organised. Whereas Tam Coc looks more remote because of the padi fields.

Next we visited Hoa Lu Ancient Capital where it was the capital of Vietnam in the 10th and 11th centuries. I think most of it is gone, with just the temple. 10,000 VND. Unless you’re into temples and history, or photographing such things, can be missed.

Off we were again, but when I smelt meat grilling. I asked the rider to stop. He told me it was grilled goat. They like eating goat out here in Ninh Binh. Since it was 1230, I decided to stop.

The grilled goat was tough, but it was an interesting mix. One that got more and more interesting as one ate more of it.

It comes as a set with rice paper, a basket of various leaves (mint and basil are the only ones I can identify), the said grilled goat meat that looked like stay chunks, dipping sauce that was a little sweet and sour and was had a kick that came a little after eating, probably due to it containing ginger and a plate of fresh starfruit, guava and pickled figs. The figs, you eat on its own. The rest goes in a roll.

A very enthusiastic lady came over and proceeded to demonstrate to me how it was to be done without being asked, then dipped the roll into the sauce and attempted to put the roll into my mouth, instead of passing it to me. This happened not just once, but twice. The second time, another lady came to inspect how I was doing and determined I was making a mess of things and gave me a second demonstration plus feeding session.

The goat is covered in sesame seeds, but I think those seeds are fried in garlic and salt. It was very tasty. The goat was marinated with spices and lemongrass.

I finally got it right. But I wished that the goat had been cut in strips, rather than chunks. I didn’t quite like the figs as they were preserved in salt, rather hard and sappy tasting. Lunch cost me 120,000 VND.

Then we headed to Mua Cave (20,000 VND).

Passing more padi fields, buffalo, duck, chicks and circumventing potholes, I was brought to a place with many stairs defying gravity. It’s not just the number of steps, it’s that each step is nearly the height up to my knee, granted, my knee isn’t that far from the ground.

And as I got closer to the top, it seemed animals preferred to roam high above too. There were a lot of animal droppings.

In spite of all of this, the view was beautiful. I even got to see Tam Coc that I had missed in favour of Trang An. I’m not sure where the cave was though, but it didn’t really matter. The walk up was not as terrible as I thought it would be.

My next destination was Bich Dong Pagoda where you enter a cave climb more steps and then go out of that cave to find a pagoda. It was free, so a harmless visit.

Then I rode through a market set up outside where you take the Tam Coc boats from, and arrived at Thai Vi Temple where the monk there very insistently spoke to me in French and told me to give a donation. Twice he did that. Never have I seen such persistence. He even complained to my bike driver that I was being difficult or stingy. I was being both. Finally I gave him the smallest denomination I had. 500 VND. A note my mother had given me.

Dinner in town at Pho 24. I had a fried beef noodle. 30,000 VND. Although the receptionist at the hotel recommended the fried rice. Maybe I’ll have time to try it tomorrow. Fried rice is 25,000 VND.

I am fast running out of dong. I changed S$70. On looking back, I had some big ticket expenses. The bus trip, entry fees. I forgot to take that into consideration. I suspect the hotel I’m staying at – the Ngoc An Hotel – with it’s incredibly large room but no closet/hanger – will give me change in VND.