Tam Coc by Bike and Rowboat
Trip Start
Oct 16, 2007
1
25
83
Trip End
May 09, 2008
Tam Coc,
Vietnam
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
We decided to escape from the noise and smog of Hanoi into the countryside for another day. Tam Coc is supposed to be the "Halong Bay on Rice Paddies", and we thought this might be a nice companion tour to the Halong Bay we just took. Tam Coc is definitely a much smaller town than Halong. We rented a couple of bicycles and biked through the villages and countryside, which was really nice. There weren't any other tourists biking with our group, probably because it was also really hot that day! The strangest thing we saw on the bike trip was a big fat pink pig with its mouth and legs bound up with rope and tied to the back of a moped. It was blinking at us as the moped passed us by. I had my camera in hand but was stunned for a few seconds on seeing the pig, and didn't get a chance to take a photo! We sadly thought this would be the pig's last day. After lunch (we were glad no pork was served) we boarded a rowboat manned by 2 young women
Rowing with feet
. They rowed us down the river amongst the limestone mountains jutting randomly out of the flat terrain. They didn't speak much English, and seemed very nice and friendly at first. We went down 3km down the river (about 45 min each way), through 3 cave-like tunnels. Shari liked the scenery actually better than Halong Bay. It was definitely a more personal experience as we were in a smaller boat and got much closer to the mountains. On the way back, one of the other rowboats threw over a big metal box onto our boat, and the ladies quickly opened it and the selling part of the tour began. We politely shook our head to the dozens of t-shirts, tablecloths, bags, purses, etc that they brought out of the box. At the end of the tour, the two women complained to us that we didn't buy any souvenirs and that we didn't tip them enough (we did tip them the same amount as the admission price!!) Too bad they don't let tourists rent boats on their own... what can you do? Aside from the aggressive selling (yet again here in Vietnam), we did really enjoy the cycling and boat ride through Tam Coc. What also gave us a kick was watching the rowers actually use their feet to row the boats when they got tired. Check out the pic/video on it, it was very funny to watch.
