Tag Rice fields
Ninh Binh itself is a pretty small town and not much to see inside the city. The reason people come here is to see the countryside. The landscape is somewhat reminiscent of that of Halong bay with the same kind of karst cliffs but instead of islands in the sea, they stick up out of fields, rice paddies and rivers. The best (or at least most famous) place for seeing this landscape is Tam Coc, some seven or eight kilometers from the city centre. You rent a boat for two or maybe three people and a local person rows (using … Read the rest
The road, raised on an embankment, cuts straight through the Vietnamese countryside. On the right are yellowish green fields with grazing cattle here and there, and a few scattered houses. In the far distance a row of mountains frame everything in, and up above pure white clouds tower majestically in the clear blue sky. To the left the square pools of the rice paddies are almost indistinguishable from the river that curves it’s way through the landscape; old barges that look too big to fit between the rice paddies floating lazily by. In the middle distance the karst cliffs rise … Read the rest
Yini and I both felt a need for a mini vacation, so this weekend we took Friday off and headed to Taidong on the south east coast. This is about as far away as you can go in Taiwan while still staying on land. If you are taking public transport you can either get a high speed train south along the west side, change to a normal train and cross the southern tip then go north again along the east coast, a process that takes around six or seven hours. Or, you could get on the normal train right from … Read the rest