• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Darin Gibby

Author • Speaker • Lawyer

  • Home
  • About Darin
  • Books
    • Chasing Hindy
    • Gil
    • The Vintage Club
    • Why Has America Stopped Inventing?
      • Museum of Models Brochure
      • Historical Patent Documents
      • What is a Patent Model?
      • Bring Back the Model Requirement
      • Patents with Patent Models
      • Famous Patent Battles
  • Events
  • Media
    • Darin Gibby
    • Chasing Hindy Media
    • Gil
    • The Vintage Club
    • Why Has America Stopped Inventing?
  • Blog
    • Author
    • Patents
  • Contact
  • Nav Social Menu

November 20, 2013 by Darin Gibby

Tam Coc and Hoa Lu

My trip to Tam Coc was one of my most memorable in Vietnam.  It’s about a two hour bus ride outside of Hanoi is one of the most beautiful places in Vietnam.  In the city of Van Lam the Ngo Dong river passes through a series of paddy fields where it literally cuts through the mountain in three places forming three caves.

Grotto 1

There is a little wharf where you jump on a boat.  Your tour guide is a Vietnamese who rows the oars with her feet. That’s right, with her feet.  Even after watching for a few hours, I couldn’t figure out how she did it. I guess it saves your back, but it must take a long time to learn how.

Feet

The Tam Coc Grotto is made up of threes caves, the Hang Ca, Hang Hai and Hang Ba caves. The largest is 125 m long, but it’s ceiling is so low you need to duck when you float through it.  As you can see, the grotto is has stalactites and stalagmites of different shapes and colors that sparkle like gemstones.

Grotto

After the boat ride, we drove to Hoa Lu, the Vietnam capital city from 968 – 1009 to visit the King Dinh and Le Temples.  These were quite different from the Bhuddist temples I visited in Thailand.  Not as ornate, but still beautiful.  They were similar in their symbols. You’ll notice the roof has two dragons, which represent kings.  As it was explained to me, there were two kings fighting over the moon—which represented a woman. Some things never change.

 

Temple

Filed Under: author Tagged With: Hoa Lu, Tam Coc, Vietnam

Primary Sidebar

Books

Recent Posts

Trip to the Wind Rivers

September 6, 2023

Chambers Rankings and Thoughts on AI

July 18, 2023

Back in La Jolla

July 10, 2023

Review of The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

March 6, 2022

Fall In Yosemite

October 26, 2021

Footer

Darin Gibby © 2016 All Rights Reserved
Website by Dalitopia
Copyright © 2023 ·Genesis Sample Theme - Genesis Framework by StudioPress - WordPress - Log in