Drove from Cat Ba to Ninh Bình (Tam Coc to be exact), for a total of 195 km. Left at 9:40 am and drove the west coast road of Cat Ba Island to the ferry to Hai Phòng. Arrived at the ferry terminal at 10:30 am and caught the 11:00 am ferry. Encountered some minor construction which made the ride exciting – detours through narrow streets and some fun off-road. Nothing Groot couldn’t handle.
Have I not introduced Groot yet? Groot is a Honda 150 L motorcycle. In Vietnam he might as well be a BMW 1200 GS. He is faster than almost everything else on the road, which makes playing chicken with the trucks and scooters a lot of fun. He also handles the daily construction detours like a champ. Mud, gravel, potholes and caved in roads become fun adventures as opposed to things to dread.
So why Groot? We watched Guardians of the Galaxy 2 on the flight to Vietnam. I love the opening scene where baby Groot dances through the mayhem of the battle going on around him. The Guardians are valiantly fighting a monster, while Groot dances and beams with delight. It’s exactly how I felt riding out of Hanoi the first day on Groot. Groot and I danced our way through the streets of Hanoi, laughing away, while completly surrounded by chaos.
I have also come to realize that my Vietnamese vocabulary is about as strong as Groot’s vocabulary. Finally, it’s really fun to say “I am Groot” when you need to be aggressive on the streets.
We arrived in Tam Coc at 3:15 PM after a chilly and very windy ride. Typhoon Damrey is hammering Vietnam to the south of us, bringing us cloud cover and very strong winds. I was happy to have the bike loaded up to help keep us from bouncing around too much.
After checking out a few home stays and hotels we settled on the highly rated Tam Coc Family home stay. They were fully booked, and for good reason. The home stay is very beautiful and is close to many restaurants and the heart of the cute village of Tam Coc. The family welcomed us with bottled water, pineapple and hugs, and found us an equally wonderful home stay with their sister in law at Tam Coc Mountain Lake Homestay.
$26 USD per night for a private bungalow with two crisp and clean queen beds, a beautiful bathroom and breakfast. It’s incredibly clean and modern, being very new and still under construction. Tam Coc Mountain Lake Homestay is a bargain and highly recommended!
Dinner at Sunflower Tam Coc Restaurant. The owners are wonderful and the service was great. Tried the red wine from Dalat. Had to try it at least once. I’ve had worse! The food was basic, but decent flavour and fresh.
Live Life Epic 