Today I really overdid it. By the end of the day I was exhausted and had a splitting headache. I once again bicycled to all the locations but misjudged the distances and ran into a few hills. I ended up on a busy highway and thought I’d never get back.
I first went to Mua Cave and viewpoint and proceeded up 500 steps to the top of the hill for a wonderful view of the region. I really enjoyed taking photos of all the Japanese tourists who dress in beautiful colors for their photo shoots. A beautiful eco park and it was nice that the sun showed its face today. I then went to Hoa Lu Temple but was running out of time as the distance was further than I thought, so I booked it back to Trang An for the famous 3 hour scenic boat ride in which you meander between the mountains/hills and through caves. It was stunning to say the least, and the caves were downright scary as you had to occasionally duck your head in the little 5 person boat to make your way through. By the way, this was location that one of the King Kong movies was filmed. Photos can’t capture the beauty of this magical place.
I then had to bicycle back to my homestay which I thought was only 5 miles away – mind you it was already sunset. I used GPS which took me on a very busy and dangerous highway (lots of dump trucks). After about 10 minutes I get off the highway and move to a farmers road, which was perfect and picturesque. I saw long horn cattle in the riverbed, women throwing rice seed and a red hot sunset. Naturally I had to stop and take some photos. As I proceeded on the small farm road I ran into a road block of young geese, ducks and long horn cattle. Ummmmm. Now what? Too afraid of the cattle, I go back on to the highway. Now its dark and I have no light - of course nor did the motorcycles screaming past me. I finally made it back but was done with the bicycle. You never know what may happen when you don’t know your way around. That was enough adventure for one day.
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Climbed 500 steps  |
This is a real reflection from the sunset
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| Oops |
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| Goat meat for sale |
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| Road block |
Sorry about all your struggles - esp. bike ride on highway with trucks, but these pictures say to me it was worth it. Beautiful! I am sure you have a ton of pics, your are doing a great job. I hate having to "narrow" down which pictures to share. I am happy that I am able to comment on my laptop. I can't on my phone. Rachel and I are viewing this as we wait for our flight back to Bangkok. I hope we can FaceTime soon.
ReplyDeletei hope i passed the I am not a Robot test for my comment above - it never asked me to do anything!!!!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful pictures! Videos wouldn’t play this time though. Usually have no trouble. I’ll try again later. Glad you’re safe after your harrowing bike ride on the highway!
ReplyDeleteGot the videos to work. Perfect place for the King Kong movies ( which I like). Maybe your duck/cattle roadblock was Buddha keeping you safe from something. 😊
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