It takes 8 hours to get from Ninh Binh (near Tam Coc) to Dong Hoi on the train. Then it’s a 45-minute car journey to Phong Nha.
We decided to take the train leaving Ninh Binh at 08.17 and arriving in Dong Hoi 8 hours later, and then a private transfer to our next destination – Phong Nha. You can also get a sleeper bus directly to Phong Nha (there’s no train station there), but it arrived at 4am so we preferred to take the train to maximise sleep time.
Booking train tickets
We booked tickets only the morning before we left, online via Baolau. We paid 281,000d (10.70 EUR) for the ticket and 45,000d (1.71 EUR) for the booking fee. You get emailed a ticket with a QR code which you don’t need to print off. In fact nobody even asked to see our ticket at any point. When you book you have to select a seat and once on the train both the carriage numbers and seat numbers are clearly labelled.
Ninh Binh train station
We asked the Tam Coc Family Hotel to organise a taxi for us from Tam Coc to Ninh Binh train station, which took about 20 mins and cost 5 USD. We were at the station with plenty of time to spare. The station itself is pretty small with a main hall/waiting room where locals congregate with all their worldly belongings. There’s also a small shop/cafe where you can buy food to eat there or take on board. And also a pretty sizeable tourist office, plus decent enough toilets (bring your own paper). The doors onto the platforms are locked until about 5 minutes before the train arrives.
On the train from Ninh Binh to Dong Hoi
Our first Vietnamese train journey was a smooth experience. It gets a bit busy at each stop with people loading and unloading boxes, bags, large and cleverly wrapped hard-to-guess-what-it-is items. But there’s storage space above the seats for rucksacks, and even plug sockets. Squat toilet, mind. We took snacks with us for the train but they also come around regularly selling drinks, fruit, and then – at proper mealtimes – what looked like a tray of rice, meat, veg and some slop for 10,000d. Kim very wisely chose to wait until we were off the train to mention the mouse he’d seen running around the carriage.
The countryside changed only slightly over our 8 hours. Gradually the sodden paddy fields were replaced by more and more palm trees. And we arrived into Dong Hoi pretty much on time and ready to hop into our pre-arranged transfer to Phong Nha. We’d heard that public buses only ran until 5pm (between Dong Hoi and Phong Nha) so we didn’t want to risk missing the last one of those, especially given the bus station is about a 30-minute walk from the train station. There were plenty of taxi touts waiting on the platform trying to get our business, but we found it easier to just book the transfer with Oxalis, the company we were doing a tour with the next day. The transfer cost 640,000d (24.36 EUR) and took just under an hour.
In Phong Nha we stayed two nights at Green Riverside Cosy Home. It was fine, and we had a nice view over the river from our room, but we recommend they add some windows…The town of Phong Nha itself was ok – plenty of bars and restaurants but it had a slightly odd feel to it. Everyone looked a bit miserable and we couldn’t work out why. Having done the trekking/cave tour the next day, I think we mistook miserable for knackered. Oh and it’s still raining, so that doesn’t help…