Lago Avandaro at Valle de Bravo, Mexico.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Valle de Bravo, Mexico.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Playa del Carmen on December 17th!

Friday, March 1, 2024

We found all the tourists!

And they are here in Ninh Binh. Every last one of them, apparently!

We woke up to another drizzly day in Vinh. You could tell it had rained quite a lot overnight, but fortunately we missed that and it was just drizzling a bit when we left for the train station.

Oh... we were pleasantly surprised by our included breakfast. It was full buffet style, with a lot of selection. And we actually spoke to another "westerner", a guy from the UK who works here in Vietnam.

We walked just over 1 km from the hotel to the train station. 

Waiting for the train.

Here it is, right on time!

Again, no photos from the train ride, which is too bad since there was some nice scenery. But I just don't see the point of showing you fuzzy pictures taken through dirty windows.

It was a pretty slow train though. It took over four hours to go 200 kms (125 miles). But, it was comfortable enough and we like trains better than buses.

Arrived in the town of Ninh Binh at about 4:00pm. But we weren't staying in the town itself, we were staying in the touristy area of Tam Coc which is about 6 kms (3.7 miles) outside of town. Our hotel had said they would pick us up, but it took them a while to show up.

As we entered the town, we saw where all the tourists have been hanging out. This is definitely a tourist hot spot, but a friend had told us that the Ninh Binh area is not to be missed, and we'll show you why over the next two days. There's a reason it's a popular area.

The Tam Coc center Boutique Hotel gets fantastic reviews, and we were lucky to get one of the last rooms. It's a little more expensive than we would have liked, but again, breakfast is included so that's a bonus. We're paying 635,000 dong ($25.80 USD, $35 CAD) per night.

Decent sized room, with a comfortable bed.

With a kettle and a fridge, two things we like in a hotel room.

The facilities.

We had had a decent breakfast, but never had any lunch so we were getting pretty hungry. And one thing about being in a tourist town is that there are lots of restaurant choices. Just down the road is an Indian restaurant that gets great reviews, so we headed over there for some chicken and vegetable curry. A little pricey by local standards, but it was really good and we might have to go back. We'll see.

There's an odd cold spell going through this area yesterday and today. Forecast high of 18C (64F) and overcast. That's okay though, we've got a long walk planned for today. 

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And in Canada...

2 comments:

  1. we like trains better than buses.......WHY?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We find that trains are way more comfortable, more leg room, plus the fact that you can get up and walk around to stretch your legs and there just seems to be something more relaxing about a train, maybe it is the movement of the train as it travels along the rails.

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