Our journey to Ninh Binh...what a balls up! 
 
Our bus in Dong Hoi was due to pick us up at 8pm and it didn't arrive until 10:30pm. Tom and I were the only people waiting and when it did finally arrive the driver faffed around for five minutes before actually opening the bus door and coming out, just leaving us standing there. Then he gruffly told us to get on the bus in Vietnamese. We kept pointing to the luggage compartment under the bus where we usually put our bags as they are so big. He just looked angry and told us to get on. So apparently there was no room under there and we were going to have to take our bags on with us. Now i'm not sure if i've mentioned just how little room there is on these sleeper buses. Two VERY narrow aisles with three rows of chairs/beds. Our big backpacks were wider than the aisles and our seats were unfortunately at the very back. There was nowhere for our bags to go!! Yet the driver just kept angrily pointing for us to get to the back of the bus. HUFF! We were pretty angry with his attitude and lack of help at all by now, considering he was late too. So getting our bags to the back meant dragging our bags (as we couldn't fit through with them on our backs) bashing into every poor person who was asleep on the bottom bunks and waking them up. Sorry sorry! We get to our beds and find someone elses suitcases on them, great. So they had to be moved. We just had to leave our bags in the way in the aisles as there was no where else. Everyone on the bus is staring at us by now after being woken by the commotion. Wish I had a photo of the buses to show you what they are like! In addition our seats were dirty and the bus wasn't very clean at all. Up until now all our bus journeys in Vietnam have been amazing!
 
So we were tired, so we slept. We woke when the bus stopped for the first time the following day. Where were we? Oh yes HANOI!! The bus didn't stop at Ninh Binh it just drove straight through to Hanoi. The driver came and told us we needed to get off the bus. No English, so no explanation, just pointing for us to get off. That was it. We were furious. Angrily asking why he hadn't stopped. (Hanoi is a further 3 hours on from Ninh Binh by the way). This guys attitude especially after last night was just not helping our mood one little bit. Not to mention that he just started laughing and talking about us in Vietnamese to other passengers at the front of the bus who were all watching and now laughing too. We were clearly both very angry and only now did he get off the bus and point to another bus that we needed to switch on to, to take us back to Ninh Binh. Brilliant.
 
We finally arrived in Ninh Binh later in the afternoon after an additional UNNECESSARY six hours on a bus. HMMPH!
 
So anyway, Ninh Binh was recommended to us by our friend Prodge. We were really glad we decided to check it out! There isn't much to do in Ninh Binh, it's quite an industrial busy town, it was the beautiful countryside surrounding the town we were after. We were in for a treat!
 
The next day we hired a motorbike from our hotel and we were off to our first stop, Tam Coc. Pretty crazy busy roads for the first ten minutes until we headed out of town and then off into the countryside! Tam Coc was just absolutely beautiful and it is famed for its huge limestone rock formations surrounded by rice paddies. The best way to see it is by taking a two hour boat ride on the Ngo Dong River. We had a little rowing boat with just the two of us and our rowing man who somehow managed to row us with his feet! It was such a lovely peaceful and relaxing ride! We arrived early morning so there weren't many other boats on the river. Just gliding along and taking in the incredible scenery. Towering limestone all around us and we also passed under/through a number of karst caves along the way too. 
 
Off on our bike again we next headed over to Bich Dong Pagoda. Built in the 18th century including three small temples. One at the foot of the mountain, one at the entrance of Bich Dong cave and the third on top of the mountain. We saw the first, climbed up quite a few steps and saw the second temple as well as the cave (also home to quite a few bats). We attempted to climb up to the top to reach the third but the path was pretty over grown and rocky and then disappeared altogether with seemingly no way up so had to retreat! The temples were quite impressive and the views lovely.
 
Our next stop was the Thai Vi Temple. A very old and slightly run down temple. Only a quick stop and no one else around apart from an extremely old Vietnamese guy who started chatting to us in French!
 
To get to the places I’ve mentioned so far we drove along dirt roads through just amazing countryside. Lush green rice fields, huge limestone formations, crossing over the river, no one else around, just so good! Hopefully you'll get a good idea from our photos. We did have one hilarious moment when we returned from Thai Vi Temple. We followed the same and only road back you could take to find that the road had now been completely blocked by huge mounds of gravel just left there! You've gotta laugh! We managed to just about squeeze around the edges but seriously?! Even worse, there was a car behind us which was now basically stuck on this little dirt road until someone came and did something with the gravel.
 
Our last stop was the Ma Yen mountain where we'd apparently find Mua Cave. It wasn't really so much about the cave at all, which was veeeery small, as in as small as a small bedroom. It was all about the 500 steps up and the incredible, incredible, incredible views over Tam Coc at the top. Just absolutely stunning. Can't say any more than that!
 
Huge thumbs up for Tam Coc and the surrounding area. Definitely one of our favourite days on the trip so far :). Thanks Prodge!