It was a 4 hour ride with spectacular views and jaw dropping bus behaviors.

Here are some of the things I noticed while on the adventure.

The van doesn’t stop.  There is someone who stands at the sliding door yelling out the van’s destination.  If someone on the street appears to want to go that way the van slows down.  The person is then pushed or pulled into the van all while we are still moving.  The best was when a mother approached the van with her young child and the bus yeller picked the child up like a sack of potatoes and put him into the van and then grabbed his mom.  Crazy.

Some people throw things on to the van, like bags of rice, and those bags are given to someone miles away.  I am not sure how they know who to give it to or if they have to pay for this transportation service.

On our flight from Hanoi to Hoi An we saw a man carrying a HUGE bag of garlic coves onto the airplane as his check in bag.  Very funny.

Its normal for people to fall asleep on strangers.

It was about a 3-4 hour van ride from Hanoi to Nihm Bihn.  We stayed at Thuy Anh Hotel which was recommended by lonely planet.  The town of Nihm Bihn itself had little to offer.

We searched for a restaurant and ended up in sports bar.  They didn’t speak any English but understood that we wanted food.  They brought us two plates with french fries, some salad, and meat.  Hummm… Vietnamese meat.  Earlier that day we had seen dog skinned and being sold for food.  Yes, they eat dog in Vietnam.

The boat ride through the limestone mountains was cool.   We had two young girls (16-18 years old) who paddled us through the river, sometimes with their feet, with all the other tourists.

It was about a two hour long trip and well worth it.  There were limestone green mountains around every turn, caves, mountain goats climbing the steep cliffs, rice paddies, and large dragon sculpture on one of the high peaks.