As planned, I joined the Ninh Binh one day tour which includes boat riding to see caves, cycling to see hidden temple. Somewhat I felt all these advertisement and attraction is just made up to attract tourist, and it works quite well undoubtedly.
Best thing of the trip happened by knowing two awesome buddies, Nacho (Spanish) and Simon (German). We talked for 2 hours in the bus ride and that's how our friendship started. First activity of the day was visiting ancient temple, as usual.
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| It doesn't look that bad from far sight though, just that I am not so into temple since all of them look the same to me |
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| I prefer scenery view, something like rocks, lakes, rivers, trees and perhaps, even skies! :D |
Second activity was sampan riding! I looked forward to this the most because there should be a lot of scenery! Too bad it disappointed me due to the hot climate. Riding boat under hot sun without shelter was a torture and luckily there was this Thai girl in my boat to talk to me, if not this sampan riding would end miserably.
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| The view is really beautiful, everything looks so ancient and look at the rock! It has been for centuries I guess. How magnificent this is! Too bad the ride was really hot and I couldn't enjoy it much. :( |
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| Entrance of the cave! Can you see the exit of it? Just the other side with light coming. :D I really hoped that the sampan can stay in the cave for the entire trip, it is so cooling inside. and I heard people singing inside the cave, it's good! echo from the cave does magic real good! |
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| As usual, locals were selling merchandise even on the boat! It's annoying as they were really pushy and aggressive |
After the sampan ride, we cycled into the end of the village and there is a hidden temple up the hill and we did a little trek to get there. It's nothing that special, but we have traveled so far for this, must go and take pictures!
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| The secret temple! Aren't they the same like normal temple? *unsure* |
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| Group photo, Nacho (leftmost), random Vietnamese kid and Simon (rightmost) |
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| Simon, the big kid on the bicycle |
He is the most good kid I have seen in the trip. One who doesn't smoke, doesn't drink, does running in Hanoi and having 8 eggs for dinner. He does weight lifting, that's why! :D Oh, Nacho was behind us busy taking pictures (he is a semi-professional photographer!).
After the trip, we got back to Hanoi around 7pm. We planned to have dinner together and a few drinks to say farewell since it's the last night for both Nacho and me, sadly.
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| Having fried eel vermicelle with Nacho, it was indeed very nice and I highly recommend it! *slurp* |
After dinner, we headed to have icy fruits that is quite famous in Hanoi. It's combination of various kind of fruits, ice and coconut milk! It is really good and it's super cheap, cost less than USD$1 for one bowl.
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| Closer shot to illustrate how yummy it is! |
So after dessert, we had a few Bia Hoi (beer made by local people) and it's only USD$0.25 for one glass, it is just so crazy. We never got drunk for the last night, just want to enjoy the night. After a few glasses, we all went back to sleep and had a little private time to condense our own feeling about ending our trip.
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| Us, having fun for the last night! So long peeps |
P.S.: It's really nice meeting you guys, Nacho and Simon, we have the same mentality and thinking and it's amazing how well we clicked even only spent one day together. I will definitely pay you guys a visit when I do my backpacking trip to Germany. Goodluck for you guys in the future! gbu! :D
Lastly, just a random shot of me on the sampan (taken by the Thai girl!)
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| Spot the tanned line? |
Do you know running man? there was an episode which they went to the place you went to (Ninh Binh). Thank for let me know the place. Feel like going to this place after watched the running man. haha
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