Ninh Binh

 Ninh Binh is a small town a few hours south of Ha Noi. Ninh Binh is a rice farming town among massive cartoonesque limestone mountains. The town itself isn't too big. There aren't many attractions in Ninh Binh, but in-between the mountains there are countless small caves and rivers. Even though the mountains look really good for rock climbing, there doesn't appear to be much climbing in Ninh Binh. We stayed in an 'ecolodge' near a cave attraction called the Mua caves. But more than that, the attraction of that area was a shrine atop a mountain and some serious stairs leading up to it.

The shrine wasn't very grand. It consisted of a roof and a small statue. At the summit (a few feet up) was a long statue of a dragon, hence the name of the pagoda: lying dragon top. We hiked up the stairs twice, once to see the top, and the second time to follow some mountain goats out of curiosity.

We rented bicycles to ride through the rice paddies (no, not directly, there were paths). We encountered a group of small children along the path who blocked our way. It was a hilarious encounter because one boy reached his hand into the churro bag I had in the front basket of my bicycle and when he realized it was empty he ate the crumbs and threw the bag on the ground. His friends laughed at his boldness. We also saw a duck farm with so many baby ducks that when they moved they looked like a flowing river. They were also scared of the goats that lived on the mountain and when the goats came down from the mountain the yellow ducklings would waddle down to the river as fast as they could. We also came across two boys in the rice paddies who appeared to be catching fish, while trampling a lot of rice in the process. We also saw that the fish appeared to be coming out of an open pipe between the field and a water reserve pond. We did not know weather the fish had been let out purposefully or if it had been an accident. The mystery remains. We rode quite a lot, and when we decided to turn back my bike chain got unhooked. Now, my bike had a chain protector, so it was really hard to get it back on. We eventually resorted to hitting it with rocks.

On our way back we passed by a pulperia, we stopped to get more chips, and this strange man walked up near Jim, Susan noticed him, but Jim appeared not to. He was wearing strange traditional clothes, and cloth foot wear. He had a long white beard. Susan and I have come to the conclusion that he was the ghost of Ho Chi Minh, who was an Important revolutionary, and he rose to power after the last emperor of Viet Nam.

On out last day we decided to go on a boat tour of the river caves. We drove a seemingly long way, only to realize it was actually a really short way, and the taxi driver, who was using a meter, was trying to earn a bit more cash. We arrived at Trang An. After figuring out how the tickets worked, we got on a boat with a German woman called Dana. We were conducted though stunningly low ceiling caverns. We drove through an amazing display of mountains and caves. We stopped at a temple which was an important military center during the 12^th century, during the attack by the Mongols. It was smart because the horses the Mongols had could not trespass the rivers or mountains.

When we left the were driven into town and went to the train station. At 9 we walked onto the overnight train. We accommodated our selves into or sleeper car. And went to sleep as the train was leaving the station.