NORTH VIETNAM
December 2024
HANOI
Started our first day in Hanoi by walking along the Hoàn Kiếm Lake in the heart of the Old Quarter. There is a beautiful bridge built out of wood, painted red, and built into a curved shape that stands as a symbol of the Sun God; cross it and it will lead you to the Ngoc Son Temple, an important holy site with a rich history. Inside the main temple, an old man was offering Vietnamese Calligraphy (for a fee),
After wandering around the streets of Old Quarter, we noticed ourselves in the middle of a huge crowd. It turned out to be the famous Train Street, where trains go down narrow rail tracks rattling cafes and shops inches away. Since the train is not that frequent, we decided to keep going along the tracks until the train was coming.
We started the following day at the Temple Of Literature (Văn Miếu), founded as a temple to worship the Chinese philosopher Confucius and known as the first national university in Vietnam. It is a cultural and historical relic, and also where many students come to pray for luck in their upcoming exams and studies; we were lucky to see a class trip there.
Not too far north, we arrived at the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long, which was the hub of Vietnamese military base for over a century. It’s a complex of historic buildings built in the 11th century. Here we also found another group of students, perhaps taking a graduation picture. The whole citadel was extremely peaceful and quiet, a great break from the bustling and noisy city.
After trying many times to find the entrance to the huge Ba Dinh Square, where we could find Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, we finally found it on south side of the square and went a pretty strict security control to enter. It’s a huge and impressive complex with large historical buildings. We saw many soldiers taking pictures with the square in sight; it seems that the Vietnamese take great pride in their history and this square embodies the patriotic spirit. It’s also the venue for most military parades.
NINH BINH
We took the early train from Hanoi to Ninh Binh. It took a bit longer than a bus, but it was quite comfortable and I always enjoy experiencing train travel in different countries. Ninh Binh is a city and capital of the province with the same name, however there isn’t much to do in the city itself so we stayed in the popular town of Tam Coc and, as usual, rented scooters. The area around this province is mesmerizing, thanks to its magical riverine landscape, with sheer limestone mountains rising up from the paddies.
We started our day by visiting the nearby Bich Dong Pagoda, a sacred site nestled into a mountainside. Right next to it, we also followed a short trail that led to a café and a little quiet area to relax and read a book by.
After the pagoda, we got on our scooters and drove for around 40 minutes to the Bai Dinh Pagoda Complex. It is considered the largest complex of Buddhist temples in Vietnam and has become a popular site for Buddhist pilgrimages from across Vietnam. It’s truly magnificent and, to our surprise, it was really empty when we visited, so we basically had the place to ourselves. On the way there, however, we came across a beautiful place by the Trang An river where, apparently, the movie Kong: Skull Island was filmed.
On our way back, we had to take another stop to see the sunset over that place next to the river. It was the only decent sunset we had in Vietnam.
The next day, we did a boat tour around the Trang An River. We picked Route 3, based on our guide’s recommendation. We just went to the ticket office and booked it there, there is no need to book in advance (in fact, it’s not even a possibility); all boat tours are organised by that office. This particular route went by 3 temples and 3 caves. We always got around 10 minutes to explore each temple.
After the boat tour and a hearty lunch, we hiked up the Hang Mua Cave viewpoint. Around 500 steps or so later, we were rewarded with a beautiful misty 360-degree view.
CAT BA / LAN HA BAY
For the final leg of the trip, we went to Cat Ba Island. Cat Ba is the largest of an archipelago of over 300 small islands, making up sites such as Ha Long Bay and the less-crowded Lan Ha Bay. Since it is way less busy than Ha Long Bay, we opted to do a tour starting from Cat Ba. We did a 2D/1N cruise with Cat Ba Ventures and were really happy with it. The bedrooms were great and the food was also pretty good.
After the cruise ended, we still had an extra night in Cat Ba island. We stayed in the town where the port was, which seems to be the main town. It’s not a particularly beautiful town but quite convenient and there’s a lot of good food options around. You can definitely tell that this island suffered mass expansion during the Covid boom, which is when it became a popular spot for domestic tourists. For the last day in the island we visited the Hospital Cave and the Cat Ba National Park. Since it was pretty rainy I didn’t take any pictures, so this concludes our trip.