What are men to rocks and mountains? (Ninh Bình)

After Tet, I was basically just running out the clock on my contract. I only had a couple weeks left, as my contract was for one year. So on the last Sunday of February I came in to work at my usual butt-crack of dawn, taught my two classes of infants (my other classes had already concluded and the new teachers had taken the re-enrolling students), ate some lunch with my co-workers one last time, and said my goodbyes. I still had to drop in to the office a few more times to pick up paperwork and take care of a couple of administrative loose ends, but that was more or less the end. Just like that, I'd done what I set out to do: I stuck it out.

Am I a little proud of this? Yes, I am. Now that the dust has settled I can say that while the year was not entirely bad (I had a lot of great students and co-workers, I made good friends, I got into shape and rediscovered my love of biking, I got to see a pretty good amount of Vietnam plus bits of Thailand and Cambodia, I learned a handful of Vietnamese, I experienced some truly euphoric pub quiz victories, I drank so so so much Vietnamese coffee) it was also not entirely good. I worked relentlessly, busting my ass in ways that often felt tangential and irrelevant to my employers. I spent a lot of time just trying to stay sane and navigate the madness of their very corporate expansion and general business practices (and prioritizing of business over good educational practices). I learned what it really means to work for a language center, at least one in their mold: it means decisions being made from the top, it means two non-consecutive days off (if that, as I often went months with only one or none) a week, it means a lot of stress on performance quality. It means being confronted, often, with the business side of things, when all you want to do is get into the classroom and do your thing.

I'm not into it. But I stuck it out, because I put my John Hancock on the contract, because I wanted the full year on my resume, because I wanted Hanoi as my home base for exploring Asia when time and finances would allow. It was not a perfect year, but I don't regret staying. I don't regret my rants, I don't regret the drinking with my co-workers to cope with stress and workload, I don't regret any of the days I spent in bed eating banh mi and feeling so fried I just watched endless Youtube videos, I regret neither the times I stood up for myself and put foot my down nor the times I decided to play ball and do whatever my employers asked of me. I'm glad all of it happened and if I had to to do it again, I would go about things in more or less the same fashion.

Okay. So. A whole year gone. I had about two weeks between when my contract ended and when I needed to be in California for one of my best friends, Kathleen's, wedding to her wonderful (now) husband Niluk. So I decided to go hard and then go home. I would go to central Vietnam and see Ninh Binh (pronounced up north as "Ning Bing, you're welcome for that). Then I would come back, take a couple days to relax in Hanoi, then head to the coast to see Da Nang, Hoi An, and Hue. I'd give myself one full day back in Hanoi afterwards to pack up a whole year's worth of life and wrap up all my loose ends, seeing whatever friends were still around and free and buying a metric ton of souvenirs I'd been eyeballing for months. Then I'd get on that plane with a light heart. I'd know that I had done the damn thing. And I'd head home.

But first! Ninh Binh. I took the train there both ways, as it's only about a 2 hour train ride. I splurged and stayed at a really nice "glamping" place called Nguyen Shack, outside of the city. It had these amazing bamboo bungalows and was located in this little valley among the karst mountains of the countryside.

They had a choice of private bungalows or the more affordable main bungalow with rooms section off, like a bamboo motel layout. I went with affordable. It was still pretty luxe, in my opinion.

Parking and the main shack, where the restaurant/lounge was located. I ate most of my meals here because it was affordable, the menu was extensive, and the food was delicious.

They had an adorable little baby pig. Its name, unfortunately, was Bacon.

Restaurant shack.

Bamboo pathway to the other bungalows.

Super fancy private bungalows.

Looking at the shacks from the other end of the valley.

They had their own little cave!

End of path.

My first day there I arrived at Nguyen Shack around noon, ate some lunch and decided to head out towards Hoa Lư, an ancient capital during the 10th/11th centuries, a few miles away. It was the nicest day I had while I was there and they have free bicycles for the guests to use plus maps galore so it was easy to get around.

Passing Trang An tour entrance building, with plans to return to this later!

This is how you selfie, right? Am I doing this right?

Entrance to the Am Tien temple which I wanted to visit but which was unfortunately closed. Also when I rode up to this to check it out some village boys walked over and were eyeballing my bike in a way that I was not cool with so I did not linger.

Entrance to Hoa Lư.

Sure, yes, of course. Where else would they live but on the wide expanse of cobblestone plaza between the temples?

The city's layout. I really didn't explore this as much as perhaps I should have as I was up early to get to the train station on time, had spent two hours on a train, and rode an old rickety bicycle about 30 minutes to get here. So I checked out the first temple, I believe it was the King Đinh Tiên Hoàng temple.

Maybe? I honestly cannot remember which one it was and Wikipedia is proving extremely unhelpful. In any case, I wondered around for about five minutes and it look like a Vietnamese temple. I don't mean to sound flippant although I'm sure that is, but at this point I'd explored quite a few Vietnamese temples and I think I was starting to experience some fatigue towards them. So... maybe not all that impressed.

Next, I accepted this challenge:

80 meters up, you say? So be it.

Worth it.

After that climb, I was all set on Hoa Lư. Important Vietnamese history it may have, but I was tired and hungry.

Riding back, taking in all the nature, a nice contrast from Hanoi living. Ducks! Goats! Mountains! Rivers! Wide, open skies!

The absolute best part of Nguyen Shack: each room and/or bungalow has their own hammocks. They are perfect for late afternoon reading and napping.

A dark food photo of my dinner that night, fried spring rolls and vegetable phở. A little greasy but so good.

The next day I had to choose between two riverboat tours that led their way through two separate cave systems/temple complexes: Tràng An or Tam Cốc. Although featuring similar geography and architecture I'd heard one recommended over the other by various people; this one takes longer, this one you stay on the boat whereas that one you get to go into the temples, this one is more expensive, that one is more accessible. I don't know. I went with Tràng An because from the people I talked to it sounded like there were more caves and it was a little bit less crowded, which were things I was into. I think they might be kind of a six/half dozen situation. Or could not be a cheap-skate and stay longer, do both tours. I don't know. Live your life however you want, you know?

The starting point.

Two possible tour choices. I spent forever looking at this, deciding which one I would go with and then when I got out onto the landing and descended the stairs to where the boats were I found there was only one choice because all the boats were going the same way. So. I have no idea which tour I took. But it was the same one everyone else was taking that morning. Because I was traveling alone, I got placed on a boat with three middle-aged South Korean (I later learned that's where they were from) tourists. I sent a serious of texts relating my ridiculous experience it them to Lenna, and hopefully she will get those to me at some point and I can update this with a direct play-by-play, but suffice it to say that my time with them included realizing that they were part of a group of about 30, spread out over about five boats, that none of them spoke much English, that pre-noon beer drinking and cigarette smoking aboard our little dinghy was totally acceptable, that when you roll with a group of middle-aged Korean tourists they will start dragging you around by the hand and bossing you around like you are their errant teen daughter, and that while traveling down the river in what somehow felt kind of like an attack formation they can and will singing together from their various boats something that sounds like a Korean war march. Also one of the women in my boat gave me a red ginseng candy which was one of the least joyful and grossest candies I have ever had the misfortune of trying. It was an amazing experience.

[edited to add] Lenna got back to me and she saved the texts from this morning! Here is the transcript of what occurred:

Me: it's me and 3 senior citizen japanese tourists on this boat. I like my odds with the really old one i'm sitting next to.

Lenna: haha sounds romantic

Me: trang an tunnel of love

Me: okay whoops they are actually korean but about a half hour ago they all procured hanoi beers and cigs out of nowhere. I think we are officially the party boat. Also they have taken SO many photos of me. So. Many. 

Me: the woman in the group just chased me down at one of the temple stops and held my hand to lead me back to the boat. Lol wtf

MeL but she gave me a disgusting red ginseng candy that i am now pretending to like so at least i have that

Me: they actually a group of about 5 boats worth of middle aged tourists and they're all singing in korean together. It sounds like a war song. 

MeL Sorry for the barrage of texts but i have to share this weirdness with someone

Lenna: Never be sorry for that story, that is outstanding! A. Maz. Ing. 

Me: Haha such a strange morning. At one point one of their friends on another boat started yelling at me in korean, and the rough translation i got was that i should be taking more selfies.

Leaving the starting point. (This probably has a real name? I don't remember it.)

Our rowing lady! She was very nice and very tolerant of my wild and crazy Korean companions.

They insisted that I was not taking enough selfies and grabbed the camera from me a couple times to take some photos of me. My camera battery sadly died about halfway through this tour but in a way it was nice because I just sat back and enjoyed the sights. They were quite appalled when I explained in pantomime that my battery was dead. There were a lot of very concerned faces, and then they started taking photos of me themselves while giving peace signs. So somewhere in South Korea there is a photo album full of pictures of the Tràng An grottoes and also some random American girl who probably looks a little bit frightened.

Caves. Another picture of me because my new best friends insisted.

She was seriously NOT having the stalactite action at all.

It was beautiful and peaceful, besides the rowdiness of my boat-mates. Like I said, unfortunately my camera died then so after the tour finished I hopped back on my bike and headed back to my bungalow to charge the battery before heading back out to climb Hang Múa peak, another tourist destination due to its incredible view of the Tam Coc area that was, happily, located literally around the mountain from where I was staying.

See that trail of white leading up to the structure at the top? Those are stairs. That was my mission.

Just some fun statues in the park that leads you to the base of the staircase leading up Hang Múa.

Or as it is apparently also known, The Lying Dragon Mountain.

Ascending.

At one point, this was the stairs situation. It was...unpleasant.

Temple/pagoda thing at the top.

Eponymous lying dragon. At first I was going to stay at this level even though I'd read that it was not too difficult to climb up on the dragon. The photos probably don't capture how rough this rock was, very sharp. But these two girls climbed up not long after I got to the top and when I saw them doing it I felt pretty jealous. I'd come this far, I decided. So I scrambled on up the last bit of rock, actually just straight up climbing with arms and legs, and I'm really glad there was no one there who knew me to watch me do it because it was not graceful.

But totally worth it. The sunset was mild but lovely but I could hear rumbling and just see what looked like it might be lightning in the far off distance, if you look at the pictures with the layers of mountains you can see that the sky was getting darker and I was very, very high up.

When you see it....

The cave beneath the peak.

It leads out the other side into the valley I was just looking down at.

Just some real cool statues in the statue park, including...

...horsies!

I was leaving the next day and when I woke up it was foggy and rainy but there was one more thing I really wanted to see so I got the bike out and headed out, about 30 minutes or so, to...

The Bích Động pagoda. According to Wikipedia this complex of three pagoda structures, built into the Ngu Nhac Mountain in the 1400's, is comprised of Hạ (at ground level), Trung (about halfway up the mountain), and Thượng (near the top of the peak). I was told that it should not be missed when visiting Ninh Bình and although I think that getting to the top is probably a little more exciting on a day when the fog doesn't limit how far you can see, it was still a pretty incredible location.

Hạ, and some temple dogs.

Trung.

Thượng.

Behind Thượng you can keep climbing if you want, but it is once again the incredibly sharp and harsh limestone that I encountered at Hang Múa. I got about 20 feet up or so, and that took probably at least that long, and then looked out at the valley to see that the rain was not going anywhere, so I turned around and descended instead of climbing all the way to the actual top of the peak.

But not before I got this boss panorama.

Looking back at what I had just climbed.

Descending back into the cave temple area, this gate built into the rock-face felt very Lord of the Rings to me.

Hello again, my old hircine foes. These guys were pretty bold, and did not in any way scatter when I went to pass them on this path. Bold little bastards.

And with that, it was time to grab my backpack and catch my ride to the train station! I was back in Hanoi by late afternoon and after climbing all the things I treated myself to a feast and some movies, relaxing in my Hanoian life for a few days before I geared up for one final push of adventure. Ninh Bình is an incredible place. And although I had no actual, Austen-esque men situations to speak of while in Hanoi, I would choose the rocks and mountains of Ninh Bình again in a heartbeat over almost anything else.