Trang An, and which of the three boat routes to take

Two hours south of Hanoi, a river runs into a limestone hill and comes out the other side. Trang An sells that trip by the boat: one rower, four seats, and two to four hours of karst depending on which route you buy.

What is the Trang An boat trip?

The Trang An boat trip is a rowed circuit through flooded karst, passing temples on the banks and threading through caves cut clean through the rock. UNESCO listed the landscape in 2014 as a mixed site, for the geology and for the archaeology in the same valley.

Boats hold four and are rowed by one person, often with their feet rather than their hands. Nothing goes fast, which is the point.

The caves are the part people remember. Several run several hundred metres under the hill with a metre of headroom, and the boat glides through in near darkness.

Which route should you pick?

Route one if this is your only boat trip, because it packs the most caves and temples into the shortest circuit. Route two if you want the quietest water, and route three for the reconstructed film set built for Kong: Skull Island.

The decision is made once, at the ticket window, and it sets the shape of the rest of the day. Two and a half hours leaves an afternoon free; three and a half does not.

Nobody switches routes halfway. The Ninh Binh things to do page sets the boat against the other half-days in the area.

What does a Trang An boat cost?

A Trang An boat runs around 250,000 dong a person for a two to three hour route, which is under ten dollars at about 26,000 dong to the US dollar. The price covers the boat and the site.

Boats seat four and go out with whoever is at the front of the queue. Paying for the empty seats turns a shared boat into a private one, which is the cheapest upgrade in Ninh Binh.

Tam Coc, the shorter trip nearby, costs 150,000 to 200,000 dong. Doing both in one day comes to about 500,000 dong of boats before anything else.

When should you get on the water?

Get on the water early in the morning or mid-afternoon, and not between eleven and two. The boats are open, the water reflects the sun, and Ninh Binh is hot from May to September.

Coach groups from Hanoi arrive between ten and eleven, which is also when the queue at the jetty is longest. A boat at eight in the morning is a different river.

Rain is not a reason to cancel. The rainy day guide covers what still works, and a poncho on a boat is a small problem compared with a sunburn.

How does it compare with Tam Coc?

Trang An is rock and caves; Tam Coc is rice fields and three caves in ninety minutes. Trang An costs more and takes longer, and the water is quieter because the site is larger.

Tam Coc's advantage is the landscape above the water: the boat runs between paddies that turn gold in late May and early June. Trang An runs between cliffs the whole way.

Most people do both, which the Ninh Binh page sets out as the default two-boat day. If you only have time for one, take Trang An for the caves and Tam Coc for the fields.

Can you do it as a day trip from Hanoi?

Ninh Binh sits about two hours from Hanoi by road or train, which makes a day trip possible and tight. A car leaving at seven gets you on the water by ten, which is the hour everybody else arrives.

Staying a night changes the trip completely, because the boats at first light are nearly empty. The two days in Ninh Binh route is built around that.

Trains from Hanoi to Ninh Binh take about two and a quarter hours and cost under 150,000 dong, and the train guide covers which services run in daylight.

What else is nearby?

Mua Cave is the climb above the same valley, about 500 steps to a dragon on the ridge and the view that sells Ninh Binh to most people.

Hoa Lu, the 10th-century capital, and the Bai Dinh pagoda complex fill a second day. Both are within twenty minutes of the Trang An jetty by road.

Cycling between them through the rice is a large part of why people stay two nights rather than one — see the cycling guide for what the roads here are like.