We never made it to Halong Bay. It was billed as a solid 4 hour bus ride from Hanoi and not really doable in 1 day. As a result, we decided to pass. Instead, we headed to Trang An. After a decent amount of research, we picked Trang An based off of the reviews – it was the less touristy of our 2 options and had caves. And someone I know likes caves.
The tour also included a trip to the Bai Dinh Pagoda. We initially thought this was a filler activity but were pleasantly surprised by how beautiful it was. I think it may have been our favorite temple/shrine/place of worship of the entire trip. Yeah. I just said it.
You start out with an uphill walk to see the happy buddha. He’s my favorite buddha. Always happy.
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main temple had 3 buddhas – past present and future.
And they even had buddhas that like Coke! Since this isn’t an active temple, there are no monks. As a result, it’s preferable to have non-perishable offerings.
Down one of the many hallways were hundreds of stone buddhas. Nick made friends with this one.
We stopped off for a quick lunch and then it was time for Trang An.
The main reason people head to Trang An is for the rocks that appear to grow from the water. Very James Bond. We were almost completely alone on the water. I think there were a total of 6 tourist boats we saw along the way – including our 2. We boarded our boat and a nice little lady powered us along – Nick commented that she probably has amazing lats. Swimmer talk.
We saw a lot of locals, returning from their day after gathering greens from the river.
We saw a fellow rowing his boat using his feet and legs instead of his hands. Seems like a much stronger muscle.
And the beautiful landscape. You can see the tiny cave. There were at least 5 or 6. Maybe more…..we lost track. At one point during the ride we started to paddle. There were 5 of us in the boat so we thought we’d be nice and help row. As soon as we started rowing, the woman in the back stopped. Which is fine……everyone needs a rest I guess. But the entire reason we started rowing was to get us moving faster. Get a little wind blowing in our faces. Oh well. Still super cool.
