Now bike-less, I made my first overnight bus trip in Vietnam up to the small city of Ninh Binh, just a couple hours south of Hanoi. Crammed in the back of a 3-wide, 2-high, and 10-long series of too-small beds next to an arguing Vietnamese couple was not my ideal sleeping situation, but it worked.
Not much is going on in Ninh Binh, as the town draw is held a few kilometers away at Tam Coc, an oasis hidden from the city smog and blowing horns. A serene river flows through rice fields guarded by ominous limestone towers. Small canoes are manned by local rowers that switch between rowing with their arms to skillfully paddling with their legs as they slowly drift through the silence of the rice and river. Green rice plants had begun their turn to yellow, creating a warm reflection over each panorama. Under caves and into lagoons, the 2-hour float through the river was as peaceful as it was mesmerizing.
It seems as though the further north I’ve travelled in Vietnam, the more striking the scenery has become. Stopping off in a place like Ninh Binh, which I’d never heard of until maybe 2 or 3 days prior, is one of the aspects I love most about open-ended travel. It’s nearly impossible to discover all the sights and sounds of a country from behind a computer screen, so why bother? The invaluable information gathered from fellow travelers in hostels, guesthouses, and at the sights themselves provides the perfect roadmap for truly discovering all that’s on offer. Alas, there’s never enough time to see everything, and as I hopped on my too-full mini-bus headed towards Hanoi and the northern tip of Vietnam, I wondered just what else may have been hidden in the trail I was leaving behind.