Wandergliding: Trang-An Rowboats & Sunset at Hang Mua Viewpoint

December 1^st, 2024

The day after completing the Ha Giang Loop, we hopped on a bus before 7 am for a 5-6 hour journey to Hanoi before then taking a private car for another hour and a half south towards Ninh Binh, the capital city of the a province with the same name. We were staying in a nearby village called Tam Coc for a couple of nights.

Our fancy room at the Tam Coc Garden.

Complete with nice views.

Unfortunately the pool was a bit chilly...and the "jacuzzi" wasn't any better.

Decent pizza for dinner in Tam Coc on our first night.

We awoke to a beautiful day.

The grounds of the hotel were lovely.

The main activity for our stay in the area was a boat cave tour in Trang An, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We bought our tickets (Naomi splurged and bought a couple of extra tickets so we wouldn’t be sharing the four-person boat with anyone else). She also bought both of us a non la hats (the cone type hat synonymous with Vietnam), primarily for photographic reasons even though they did help with sun protection.

We headed down to the dock where there was a line of rowboats with their respective rowers standing at the ready with their light green shirts and non la hats.

Pick a boat...any boat...

Our rower was a tiny woman, probably in her mid to late 50s. Although she didn’t speak any English, it was obvious that we were required to put on lifejackets, even though she didn’t have one on. There were numerous other rowboats plying the water, and we could see that all tourists had the orange jackets on, but none of the rowers did. I couldn’t help but think that we were likely better swimmers than our lady rowing…but rules are rules.

Our "captain" didn't speek any English...but that didn't stop her from talking.

There were three different routes that you could choose from, visiting different parts of the area. We chose the third one, which took you to three temples, but more importantly to three different caves, including the longest one.

And here's how the translating went... She spoke more than Google Translate could handle.

A couple of spare paddles were on the boat, so we decided to help row as I think both of us felt a bit guilty being propelled along the lake by a woman older than us. After about 800 meters, we reached the first temple and were dropped off. We spent about 5 minutes wandering around and then got back on the boat.

We decided to help out with the rowing.

The first of three temple stops on the boat ride.

The entrance to the first and longest cave, which was a stunning one kilometre long, was right beside the temple. We put down our paddles to enjoy the meandering through the grotto. Occasionally we had to duck down to avoid banging our heads against the roof of the cave. At times, both Naomi and I remarked that it almost felt like we were on Disney ride, like Pirates of the Caribbean as there were boats just ahead of us moving along at the same slow pace.

Into the first cave, the big 1 km one.

At times we felt like we were actually on a Disney ride.

We had to duck once in a while...or get clobbered by the roof.

The tunnel had electric lights illuminating the way and some of them caused crystals in the rock to shine. We could hear some faint, soothing, traditional, instrumental music and at first Naomi thought that there were speakers somewhere, but we finally clued in that it was coming from the phone of our rowing lady. She would occasionally hum along which also added to the ambience.

The lighting was well done in some parts.

Exiting the long cave.

After that cave, we were back out in the sun again before reaching the next temple, followed by a shorter tunnel and then another temple and even shorter cave combo to complete the tour.

Into cave #2.

Paddling in the lovely sun.

She was a tireless rower.

On a bridge near temple number 2.

Naomi captured this cutie.

Xin chow! (pronounced "sin chow" which means hello)

As we rounded a corner towards the docking area, having completed a big loop in the waterways, it was amazing to see how many rowboats there were in waiting…at least over a hundred. I couldn’t imagine how clogged the lake and tunnels must get in high season.

Lots of hungry fish at the dock:

Some lantern decorations near the dock after we got off the boat.

We returned to Tam Coc for a late lunch before heading back in the general direction of Trang An to go to the Hang Mua Viewpoint for sunset. To reach the top, we had to climb about 500 stone steps, but it was worth the effort.

Heading up Hang Mua.

Heading up...

The lower viewpoint that we went to first.

It was quite busy at the top and there was an extra little section to get even higher that I decided to climb, but Naomi stayed at the main lookout point. It was narrow and steep with volcanic rock with small, smoothed out ridges which made it challenging to get a proper footing. It didn’t help that I was wearing flip flops.

There seemed to be only a narrow gap to climb up and there was a single file of tourists stopped, waiting to go up. I could not see around the corner, so I wasn’t sure what the hold up was. The traffic jams on the Hillary Step on Mt. Everest came to mind. It must be so frustrating waiting to get to the top due to congestion on the mountain. Yes, this pales in comparison, but it still made me think about it. When I rounded the corner, I couldn’t see what the problem was. Yes, it was a bit technical, but I think it was more a matter of people trying to go up, who shouldn’t have been. I hopped across a 4-5 foot gap to circumvent some slowpokes and made it to the top. The reward was an area where there were only a handful of people, and the best view of the sunset.

It was a lovely view from the top.