Ninh Binh or Halong Bay???

Struggling to get to the top of the 400 stairs
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After arriving in Hanoi on the night train from Sapa at 4.30am we went looking for accommodation, it's always much harder after a sleepless night on a train and you always end up picking the dodgy cockroach infested rooms! Ok there was only one cockroach but it was one too many.  We spent the day in Hanoi catching up on domestic duties and deciding on where we should go the next day.  The choice was Ninh Binh or Halong Bay?  We heard they were pretty similar, one is on water and one is on the back of a bike.... We went the bike option.  The next day we got up and headed to the bus station, we jumped on the bus that was leaving the station in ''4 minutes'', 1 hour later and with 35 more people (in a 20 seater minivan) we were off!  We thought the driving in Hanoi was bad but you should see the drivers when the get on the ''open'' road.  To keep themselves awake (it definitely kept me awake) the drivers enjoy a nice game of chicken with the other buses. I had my eyes closed most of the time while Danny was laughing, nervously.

View from the top
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We arrived in Ninh Binh early afternoon and headed to our accommodation, from there we were able to organise two motorbike drivers to take us on a tour of the area.  Our drivers led us through the back streets of Ninh Binh heading towards a huge mauntain.  It was at this point that we realised when it's 10 degrees celsius outside it's probably not a good idea to be cruising on a bike with not much on.  We sucked it up and climbed the 400 steps to the top of the mountain where there was a pagoda, once we got our breath back we had the most amazing view of the limestone mountains and of Ninh Binh.  Next it was off to Tam Coc to be rowed down a river, it wasn't unusual to turn around and see the lady using her feet to row the canoe.  It was beautiful (not her feet), we laid back and took in the stunning scenery... After a while we started to think maybe a speed boat would be better and grabbed some oars to help her out, well Danny did and I pretended to be busy taking photos while I continued to lay back.

Being rowed down the river
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She led us through three caves which each time opened up to more amazing scenery, we asked our guide to take a photo of us with this as the backdrop but she couldn't figure out how to hold the camera and ended up taking a photo of her eye, which is equally as beautiful??

Once we got back we found our guides taking big hits off a home made smoking device (a big round tube in a bucket of water with a couple of holes in it) and started to think twice about getting back on the bikes with them, we soon realised they were only smoking tea leaves and joined in!  After smoking and drinking tea we headed back to our accommodation for a hot shower and a good nights sleep.  The next day we jumped back on a (death) bus and headed back to Hanoi.  We loved Ninh Binh but wont know if we made the right choice to go there instead of Halong Bay until we go back to Vietnam for round two.