Boating in Tam Coc

Another of the day trips I managed to go on was to a scenic area called Tam Coc. It's about a three hour drive from Hanoi and could not be more different. I get the impression that the area doesn't see a load of international tourists as no-one and nothing was in English, generally the signs are in English even is the people don't speak it. However they clearly get lots of people going there as there were hundreds of the little boats that we hired and miles of parked bicycles for hire.

As I was on an organised tour I was expecting a certain amount of shopping stops and people trying to sell us stuff, however it was clear that the guide had deals with particular shops as he would march us past many that were identical to get to one he approved of.

We first stopped at the ancient Capital of Vietnam which was a time filler as otherwise the day would have been a little empty, there was nothing there just a car park which apparently was the spot the old palace was on. A little disappointing and very little time was spent here.

Next we went for lunch and then to the boats. The boats were rowed by locals who were keen to make some extra money in tips. They fussed about us in the sun, if our seats were comfy enough and panicked if they thought we were thirsty.

The trip took about an hour and a half in which we travelled down a little river, thought some caves then turned back. The area is famous for its Karsk mountain formations which seem to be all over the place in Vietnam and South West China. The stone forest is very similar and (for avid readers of Claire vs China) the GuiZhou scenic areas in visited a few months back.

After the boat trip we were given bikes, pointed in a vague direction down a dirt road and told to be back in 40 minutes. Our guide was very little above useless, he didn't want to know and later confessed to it being his last day. However without supervision we managed to cycle through some much nicer 'off-the-beaten-track' walkways around some rice field. We were very lucky to be going past them as the sun was setting making it really rather pretty. Myself and a few others from the tour were lucky enough to get half decent bikes so the uphill part of the journey was easy, some others were not so lucky and ended up pushing their one speed death traps back to the meeting point.

All in all the place was beautiful but the tour was terrible, if I can help it I don't use organised day tours but this place would have been impossible to get to without speaking the language. Never mind it can't be helped.