Good decision

Day 64 - Hanoi

Our driver picked us up at 9am, and our first stop was the Quang Phu Cau incense village an hour and a half south of Hanoi. It was set up for photos with coloured bunches of incense sticks arranged in patterns, and ladders to climb so you could get a view from on high. There was someone pushing us to buy "tickets" so we could take take photos, we'd been told by our driver that tickets weren't required, and another tourist told us the tickets were just to use the ladders, so we ignored the tout and he went off to bother someone else. A quick look here was enough for us so we hit the road for Ninh Binh.

Our original idea was to take the two hour boat trip from Tam Coc, but after K looked up the boats and found that they were just basic benches with no shade, we changed the plan so we would take the boat trip at Van Long,. This was the best decision, we had a lovely, peaceful hour long boat ride with a lady rowing us and the river practically to ourselves. The only thing we would have changed is we wished we'd brought umbrellas as there was a lack of shade.

After the boat ride we visited Hoa Lu, Vietnam's ancient capital, and explored the grounds and the historic temples.

From there it was only about 10 minutes to the Trang An river complex, which was quite a contrast from peaceful and serene Van Long. It was very crowded, people and buses everywhere, and the whole set up was like a theme park. There were hundreds of boats, as well as shops and souvenir stands (there was even a Starbucks). We were relieved that we'd taken the much more relaxing boat ride earlier. 

We were back in Hanoi by 5pm after a very enjoyable day in the country outside of the city.