Tuesday we arrived in Ninh Binh at 3:30 am, we walked very zombiefied to our accommodation and went to bed! We woke at 11:00 and freshened up then headed into town for some food, we found a cafe which had reviews stating 'almost good quality Western food' which we found entertaining and the fact that the review was true was even more comical! After, we walked to the supermarket for some supplies, Ninh Binh has very little tourists so the locals love to stare and talk with you, they make sure their children always wave or say 'hello' which we love as well, we decided as there wasn't much to do in town we would just drink the rest of the day away, we drank cheap wine and played lots of games of cards and had delicious Pho for dinner!

Wednesday, we decided to meet for breakfast at 9:00 except only Laura and Max turned up, Kate in bed with a poorly belly and Ben and Michael suffering from the red wine! We agreed to have a lazy day as not everyone was up for going out so we watched movies and planned further travels. Later we all went for dinner at a restaurant which we made sure was voted number 1 on TripAdvisor and had a really good fix of decent Western food! After, we played more cards then went to bed after a long day of doing nothing!!!

Thursday we met for breakfast at 9:00 then hired mopeds for the day to drive around the beautiful countryside. The countryside of Ninh Binh is famous for its amazing limestone mountains, some look like they've just dropped out the sky and stand where they landed! There were lots of rice fields with workers in and children riding their bikes to and from school, it is what we all envisioned 'real vietnam' to be, very beautiful. We visited Hoa Lu Ancient Capital which was the capital city in the 10th & 11th century, it contained palaces, temples and shrines but nowadays contains temples and toombs built in honour of the empoirer. When we returned to our mopeds we realised that Michael had a flat tire so had to sort that out which was added drama and entertainment to our day! Next we drove to Trang An, we went for a boat trip which we expected to last about 10 minutes but ended up lasting 2 hours! We were the only Western people there so a lot of Vietnamese people were asking to have their photos taken with us. Finally, we drove to Hang Mua where we climbed hundreds of steps up a limestone karst for beautiful views of the mountains, rice fields and river. The climb caused us to create a big appetite so we called it a day and drove straight to the restaurant for dinner, after, we were tired from our adventures so headed to bed.

Friday we had lie ins and packed our bags, we headed out for some Pho for brunch the caught our train at 13:00 to head to Hanoi.