The 5 hour bus ride north from Phong Mha to Ninh Binh on a VIP sleeper bus was actually pretty comfortable.
Interesting that they make you take off your shoes before boarding the bus. The buses tend to be quite clean tho
Ninh Binh is an off the beaten path scenic spot about 1.5 hours south of Hanoi. Except that …all of Hanoi seems to know about it and most decided to descend upon it this weekend for the famous boat ride through the karst limestone mountains-
It is a pity that so few here seem to wear the traditional conical hats-
But where does one get one nowadays? They seemed in short supply-
The boat ride- paddled by older Vietnamese women-was quite scenic, meandering along the river through caves and by the surrounding limestone mountains-
And passed temples and caves-
There were Westerners sprinkled amidst the literally thousands of Vietnamese but maybe 1 in 100.
I had rented a bike for the day and used it to bike amongst the mountains and then over to a small mountain famous for its 500 steps and spectacular sunset views. You can judge the latter-
IAs sometimes happens in my trips, I stumbled upon a local wedding (on a beach)-
The local specialty is apparently goat meat so I ordered a plate of it for dinner. That, however, turned out to be a complete fiasco.
First. they aren’t big on knives in Indochina - no 2nd Amendment apparently- so I was flummoxed as to how to cut it up. The waiter, seeing me struggling- came over with a pair of scissors and then showed me how to eat this goat delicacy. Not good when you need instructions on how to eat tho this has happened to me before here.
Well I used the scissors but ended up shooting half the goat meat across the room so someone else got it
As with other dishes, you are supposed to put the cut up goat meat, rice and lettuce, etc on rice paper, roll it all up and then dip it in sauce. Great in theory, assuming one is facile with chopsticks. but in reality what happens is that the roll falls apart, the ingredients fall out and the juices get all over your hands and next to nothing ends up in your mouth.
To add insult to injury, the supposed delicacy was tough as hell and it took me hours to chew up a couple of pieces. Finally i gave up and just ate the rice.
It is really bad when the highlight of your dinner is a bowl of plain white rice, but maybe it is an authentic Vietnamese. experience.
