Tam Coc
11/30/2025 - 12/13/2025
After our 3 day private tour of the Mai Chau district our driver drove us about 3 hours east to the town of Tam Coc in the Ninh Binh district.
Tam Coc is a nice little town/area with a population of about 15,000 in the “town” and surrounding rural area. The entire area is a UNESCO site with beautiful limestone karsts, rivers, rice paddies and caves. In what seems to be the main town of Tam Coc, there are a lot of little family run restaurants, shops selling super cheap shoes and clothing, and a great little lake with all kinds of cute little restaurants and homestays along the water.
We did a boat ride which takes you through limestone karsts and passes under three natural caves (Hang Ca, Hai, and Ba). The boats are rowed by locals using their feet which is a method used in very few places. Rowing tourists around on these boats is one of the primary sources of income for locals.
Following the boat ride, we trolled around on a little electric car (like a giant golf cart) and visited three local temples.
The first was the 13th century Thai Vi Temple, honoring Tran Dynasty kings. They were setting up a giant canopy or something right in front of it, and doing some kind of construction on one of the buildings next to it. So it was pretty disappointing. There was, however, a little old man playing some kind of musical instrument we had never seen, so that was pretty cool.
Our next stop was the Linh Coc Pagoda and “Fairy Cave”. In case you’re wondering (I’m sure you are!), the difference between a temple and a pagoda mostly has to do with the architecture… A temple is a general term for a place of worship, while a pagoda is a specific, tiered tower structure that is usually Buddhist. A pagoda typically serves as a shrine or part of a larger temple complex. SO, all pagodas are temples, but not all temples are pagodas.
The Linh Coc Pagoda was kind of cool because in addition to the buildings on the temple complex grounds, there were steep stairs leading into a cave with little places for worship along the way and within the cave.
Our final golf cart stop was at the Bich Dong Pagoda (yes, that’s really the name!). It is three-tiered Buddhist complex built into a limestone mountain featuring caves, statues, a large bell, and great views from the top. The water around the base has all kinds of water lilies that are really pretty in the morning when they are blooming.
One day we ventured out of town on a long walk through some extremely rural areas. There were a few cool murals along the way, and interesting sightings of people going about their day. We visited a cave called Buffalo Cave that was kind of a little family-owned tourist trap where you could fish, feed some animals, ride a buffalo, swim (yuk), or take a cooking class. The landscape was beautiful, but everything else was a little hokey. The cave wasn’t much of a cave, you could barely go in it because it was so small. But the history was kind of interesting… it was used a lot for protection and hiding during the various wars throughout history. And people lived in it way, way back.
We headed back out into the rural areas on a bike tour which was really good. We saw more rice fields and some cemeteries and, of course, beautiful views of the limestone karsts that are everywhere in the region.
Our first stop was at a local “business” where they brew massive quantities of rice wine to sell throughout the region. We opted not to taste it as it was still pretty early in the morning (and the whole operation looked pretty unsanitary!
We had a second visit to the Bich Dong Pagoda, and also stopped at another small temple.
We took a Grab ride about 20 minutes out of town to the largest Buddha Temple complex in Vietnam (Bai Dinh). It was enormous! They carted us out to the complex in an electric car and then we walked around among the various temples and pagodas for about 3 hours. There was a 13 story pagoda that we went to the top of for amazing views. There was also an ENORMOUS outdoor Buddha statue … it was of “Happy Buddha” that we are starting to resemble! 😊
We visited Ninh Binh City about 15 minutes from Tam Coc. There was a really pretty “walking street” right on the water. They refer to it as old town, but there is nothing old about it. It is very new and was created for tourists… but it is still really nice. We got some dinner, stopped in a craft beer place, and hit a roof top bar.
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