Trang An Grottoes

I have been to Ninh Binh approx 5 times now and Trang An is much better than Tam Coc. The river caves are much more sophisticated and intense, there are many more rivers and the boats are slightly more comfortable. One thing we weren't so happy about is we had a group of 5, however they would not allow us to all go in one boat, nor let 2 go alone, so we waited for approx 10 mins before another couple came along. However once on the river there were groups of 5 and 2 passing us regularly.

This place can be busy with tourists from all over the world but mainly Vietnamese. Entrance is 200.000 dong but for that you get a well organised experience of 1,5 to 3 hours by boat through an Unesco World Heritage area. We were put in a boat with other western tourists. I dont know why but I didnt mind. There are more then 1000 boats available on a busy day but even with that amount of tourists its still an experience when you are in between the steep mountains or in the low caves. It somehow feels like you are in a themepark but then real and without the dinosaurs or pirates with stunning views on the rocks at every turn. We arrived late at 16:00 so we could only do the 2 hour tour (they ask you at the boat), but we we were lucky to have some parts of the tour with only our boat.