Trại Cấn

Very happy with the decision to move hostel, this one is much nicer, is ran by a whole family including the grandparents. I had banana pancakes cooked by grandma for breakfast.
Today we did a tour of a few of the cultural sites in Ninh Binh in the area north of us, Trang An. Our hostel is situated down a dirt track 250m off the main road so the bus picking us up wouldn't down. When it arrived, the hostel offered to drive us up the track on bikes. I happily hopped aboard to save the walk but Kath refused, and I couldn't help but laugh as she walked behind and I zoomed away.
Our first stop was, Hoa Lu ancient capital, which was the first capital of Vietnam. It was chosen for capital as the surrounding mountains offered protection, and the rivers allowed trade to pass through. Despite this, the era last short lived (968-1010), before the capital was moved further north to Hanoi.
The actual ancient citadel no longer exists, so the site is historically cultural, but there wasn't a lot to show for it. The main attractions were two temples dedicated to kings which weren't built until the 17th century, and an 11th century small pagoda, whose view behind it was more impressive than the site as a whole, but still interesting to learn a little history.
The second stop was contrastingly different to the first in the fact it was very modern, most of it was built between 2003-10. Bai Dinh temple is the largest complex of Buddhist temples in Vietnam, it's also become a popular site for Buddhist pilgrimages from across Vietnam.
The original old Bai Dinh Pagoda, is a very small temple under a mountain dating back to the 11th century.
But the most impressive part of the complex was a winding corridor displaying 500 stone Arhat statues (a follower of Buddha who has gained spiritual enlightenment) with over 10,000 smaller golden Buddha statues in small glass cases set into the walls behind them. The stone statues were pulling different facial expressions and poses, and had shiny knees, toes hands, bellies etc... from people touching them as they walked past. Some statues were accompanied by small animals who had worn heads or noses from being constantly pet.
This corridor took us up 200 steps up to the darma hall, a grand dark wood room embellished with gold, displaying a huge golden Buddha in the centre that stood 10 meters tall and weighed over 100 tons. He was accompanied by two 7 meter golden statues, then eight wooden Vajrapani protector statues lined the wall, which was adorned by 100's more tiny Buddha's. The hall was mesmerising-ly beautiful, for sure the most impressive one I've seen since leaving Thailand.
There was also a bell tower, another hall with a different gold buddha, and some decorated stone gates. I think there was quite a few areas of the complex we didn't see, but we were on a time schedule, it was also sweltering hot (again) so keeping walking to a minimum was ideal.
After lunch, our last stop of the day was Trang An boat tour. Despite being accompanied by hundreds of other boats, the 2 hour trip was very peaceful. We followed the river as it snaked down the valley, through caves and past islands, with mountains towering either side of us. We passed through three caves, the longest stretching out 300m and made two stops at mountainside temples.
There was 4 of us on the boat, and our driver was quite an old woman, but boy she could paddle. There were smaller plastic paddles that we could use, but I think we were more of a hindrance than a help to her.
Today was a national holiday, reunification day, when the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers captured Ho Chi Minh city, ending the cold war (1975). Thus we thought there'd be something happening in the centre, so we ventured back into Trang An. There was a huge stage lit up infront of a pagoda sat on the water, with flashing lights and crowds lining up on either side of the river, and even boats of people spectating from the water. We waited 45 minutes only to find out the show was celebrating 10 years since the area was awarded world heritage status. It was fun, some singing and dancing (all in Vietnamese). Did consider hanging around til the end in hope of fireworks, but it was so packed, we didn't want to get swept away in the crowds and I was hungry haha. We didn't end up finding food in Trang An so headed back to the spot in Tam Coc we found nice beer at last night and got some spring rolls for tea (best spring rolls of the trip so faaar!).Read more