We’d decided to keep our Vietnam adventures to the north, due the cyclone damage in the centre of the country and we were trying not to fly too much. So we based ourselves in (rather smoggy) Hanoi and ventured out from there.

After a long time of having to plan everything ourselves, we caved and went with a three night / four day tour to Ninh Binh (2 nights) and Halong Bay (1 night). While both destinations can be a day tour we thought this would be a bit more of a relaxed way to go… which it was… and it wasn’t.

The first day we get picked up fairly early, on a luxury bus with maybe 20 others and many don’t have luggage. As it turned out, we were to do the one day tour but then stay at a hotel in Ninh Binh for two nights while the day trippers returned to Hanoi. So we packed in the activities onto one day and then had a rest day before getting picked up to go to Halong Bay.

First was a bike ride around some villages to visit a temple. The bikes weren’t great but the cycling was flat and quite easy.

The temple wasn’t spectacular but did have a few bonsais.

Next stop was a walk up Dragon Mountain for a view over the valley. Unfortunately, this was quite affected by the same smog as Hanoi, but we got to see Monkey Magic statues (childhood flashback!) and M got a drink of cane sugar juice to replenish his energy.

The last stop was Trang An (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) where you hop on a wooden boat to navigated almost exclusively by females who paddle through the limestone karsts and caves. It probably would have been more impressive if there were less people – we were in a stream of boats, lining up to take pictures – and if we hadn’t already seen something quite similar in our Phuket tour.

Our hotel for the next two nights was lovely, a bit fancier than we normally stayed at so it was great to have two nights there! We did not use the pool as it was quite cool but the lights were inviting 🤩 We even managed to see the sun momentarily one morning.

We had a relaxed day, walking to the nearby village for coffee / lunch and then had dinner in the nearby town. We wandered around a lake with a lovely lit up pagoda with loads of lanterns and ate pizza (for a change).

The next morning was an early pickup for the drive to Halong Bay. 7am is too early for this amount of colour: