Tam Coc
Arriving in Tam Coc at 3:45AM - a solid 3.5hours ahead of when we were told, it was cold and pitch black in a new area without a clue of where to go.
Luckily a nearby hotel was able to provide us with some wifi to figure out how to get to our home stay. The bus that we took was supposed to be heading to Ninh Binh, a larger city about 20minutes away.
Very luckily we were misinformed and we stopped in Tam Coc and ONLY ABOUT 1km from the place we had booked!!!
We picked up our bags and started walking through the dark, silent town.
We found a small gravel path off of the street that seemed to be in the direction of our guest house and timidly proceeded down the path.
A few more hundred meters and the Tam Coc Bamboo Homestay sign emerged from the darkness as a relieving marker.
We had made it once again.
But there was nobody around, no reception or entrance that we could find, and not a sound to be heard. The owner must have heard us pacing around the place debating what to do and he woke up to unlock the gate and let us in - thankyouuuuu!.
Of course our room wasn’t ready once again but he was nice enough to provide a few light blankets for us to try to sleep on the tiny couch on the upstairs balcony.
This was only hard because it was freezing cold in Tam Coc and I’m sure we would have turned to icicles had we not had each others body warmth on this tiny couch.
Another wonderful experience - oh the adventures!!
We were up off of the couch in a few hours at the crack of dawn, still shivering as we made our way downstairs for some free hot coffee and tea to warm up. We awoke to some of the most dramatic scenery surrounding the entire place, in awe once again.
The owner gave us some tips of what to in the area and we had to get out and make something of our day with hardly any sleep again. This seemed to be a growing trend in these travel days.
Their loud barking puppy caught our attention as he was dying for someone to
play with him. We insisted that we take
the puppy for a run. They didn’t seem to
keen on the idea at first but we convinced them to let us go. 
We took the pup for a long run in between rice paddies and limestone karsts to give the little guy some exercise. He was immediately sad again once we brought him back.
After our run, we hopped on some old bikes that they had laying around and set out to see the area. First we stopped at an old school yard to look around.
There were hundreds of amazing bonsais everywhere. 
Then made a stop the Thai Vi Temple. A fairly short and easy ride but a quick visit as well.
There was a pagoda built into the mountain on the other side of town that we found intriguing, so we made the 5km bike ride to get there and it was very well worth it.
Bich Dong pagoda had different levels on the mountain. The first one being at ground level with a garden and a small lake. There were steps that led up to the next level.
The second consisted of a short
hike up some steps inside a cave of the mountain with a 100yr old bell and a worship shrine. 
Through the gate and up some more steep steps to get to the top level.
This third level was said to be on top of the mountain. When we arrived at the "top" level there was a great view from the shrine. But as you can see from the tip of the mountain behind this small building, this was no where near the top of the mountain!
We saw goats climbing on steep drop cliffs and reaching over to get the better leaves.
There was a small trail that led around behind the pagoda, a litttle farrther, with a viewpoint that was slightly higher, and less visited. It had an even better view.
But we both agreed that this was not the top of the mountain. We weren’t satisfied to conquer this mountain when we weren’t even at the top.
So up we climbed.
From this part there were no steps, no trail, it was a steep jagged climb nearing the top.
Stopped for a break and to take in the premature view. Still unsatisfied we sucked it up and braved the difficult finishing climb to the very tip of this mountain -KABLAMO!
It was well worth the effort though because this was one of the nicest views we have ever taken in, even with the gloomy weather.
A 360 degree view of the surrounding area made up of tall limestone cliffs, the river and rice fields as far as the eye could see.
Here is a shot of the steep mountain from the bottom after we conquered it. At the bottom the big palm trees look like grass in comparison.We worked up quite an appetite climbing this one so we stopped at a nearby restaurant for a quick lunch after our descent. Our lunches were a Pho Bo soup (Beef Noodle) and Rice Noodles. Both of which were very questionable in smell and taste. So we shared our lunch with some of the local dogs. People were probably wondering why there were 4 dogs sitting around our table. At least they seemed to enjoy the food (who knows if it could have been their brother).
After lunch we furthered our journey out of town to the Bird Sanctuary and Wildlife Reserve.
By this time our bums were starting to hurt pretty badly on the hard bicycle seats.
After a 7km ride we made it to the gate where they collected the entry fee of $4, but it was another 4km into the park from here, yikes.
We decided to face the challenge and continue on since we had already come so far.
Finally arriving into the park there was a beautiful view of a lake surrounded by mountains and trees. There were several sights to choose from including caves, very old trees, birds and bridges. Because of our limited time and recent visit to the caves in Phong Nha, we decided to skip the caves here and see what else we could find.
We made another couple km hike through a jungle trail.
Saving some energy to monkey around of course.
We hiked first to the bird sanctuary part of the park, a lovely section where hundreds of birds of different kinds gathered and fed.
The viewing deck at the top of the bird sanctuary also had an amazing view.
We hung out here for a little while and watched the flocks before going to see the 1000yr old tree which was a very interesting site.
We thought it was going to be this massive tree but when we arrived we realized it was a 1000yr old bonsai - very impressive.
Along the way through the park there were several pigs and goats hanging out on top of cliffs. We crossed a few bridges, enjoyed some great views and joked around a little bit as usual.
After a long day of biking and hiking around already, it was time to make our way back on the long track to the guest house for the night.
We booked our stay with Tam Coc Bamboo homestay with no idea what it would be like as there were no reviews for it or any kind of website - we just decided to try our luck this time.
Getting back after this long day was a pleasant surprise - we finally had our room with a nice bed to rest on. We later discovered that this place was brand new and literally just opened for guests. This explains why there were no reviews yet.
This is what it looks like when you bike 20 some oddkm, hike for 8+km and climb a mountain the day after you ride a bus for half the night and attempt to sleep on a small, cold bamboo couch the other quarter.
They also had a traditional family dinner every night at the homestay which was fantastic. We didn’t have to go looking for somewhere to eat, there was unlimited food and we could spend some time with the other people staying at the same place. We hung around that night a little bit and because of the lack of sleep the night before we had an early night.
The next day was quite cold and rainy, we did not get up to much. We attempted to bike into Ninh Binh to see what the larger town had to offer but the pain in our asses from the bicycle seats as well as the cold had defeated us this time. We spent the day lazing and keeping warm. We sat for lunch at a nearby restartaurant (previously owned by our guest house owner). They made us some delicious goat meat and pork bbq.
That night we had another family dinner – a hot pot. There were 2 hot pots in the centre of the table and endless good food to throw into it for a mixture of greatness. Beef, chicken, fish, clam, noodles, vegetables and tofu were all mixed together. Nobody seemed too fond of the tofu other than the vegetarians. But the broth once all mixed in was amazing and tasted so good. We also enjoyed good company once again at our meal.
After dinner we enjoyed some drinks and shared stories/ travel tips with friends around the guest house. We had a great night hanging out with the other travellers but got to bed in good time as we were heading out early in the morning. We passed some contact info around in hopes to meet up again down the road.
This completed our stay in Tam Coc and after a good nights sleep we were onto another bus heading for Cat Ba island.
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