Halong Bay might be the most popular tourist attraction in North Vietnam, but the weird karst (limestone) landscape can also be found in other parts of the country including Tam Coc village, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Here you can take a slow sampan ride through green rice paddies, between karst outcrops and through the caves that give the village its name. Tam Coc means ‘three caves’ but our trip took us through just two of them.
Most of the boat handlers were women and many of them row using their feet although our very cheerful lady used the (to western eyes) more usual hand method except that she faced the way we were travelling rather than with her back to it.
The caves were actually tunnels winding through the karst with dripstones and stalactites coming low enough to make ducking necessary in places.
I’ve seen people online complaining about the commercialism of Tam Coc but perhaps we were there early enough in the day to avoid the really annoying hawkers.
Anyway, everyone in our party enjoyed the visit.
