VIETNAM - Ninh Binh

Nin Binh was a nothing little town, but it sounded like it had some cool sights so we decided to give it a couple of days.

The first day we took a motorbike tour through the countryside - which was really nice to see. We checked out a cave and then took a 2 hour row boat trip at Tam Coc. The lovely karst limestone scenery was lessened by the 1/2 hours worth of hawkers trying to sell us embroidery etc (while we were stuck with them on the boat, and couldn't get away). We then visited a few more pagodas...

Here's a collage view of the rice paddies through some cave (it was special, although I can't exactly remember why), and from the other side of the cave:

































The second day we went to Cuc Phuong national park. This entailed: monkeys (lots of) in cages - at the Endangered Primate Rescue Center, a good bit of driving in a minivan, a brief exploration of the Prehistoric Man cave, and then a couple of hours walking through the jungle to visit the "thousand year old tree". The jungle was quite reminiscent of some NZ forests, especially the big trees and ferns. Not too much wildlife though, since the locals have eaten everything in sight. HEAPS of big butterflies, which was neat.






















We had a bit of the drive though the countryside on the way back from Cuc Phuong national park, seeing a different slice of the country - heaps of pineapples, we stopped and got some freshly harvested pineapples (still sun-warm!) and ate them on the side of the road. YUM :))