Tam Coc Boat Tour, Ninh Binh

The Tam Coc boat tour is one of several popular boat tours you can take in Ninh Binh Province, and the most easily accessible from Tam Coc Village.

• Opening hours: 08:00 to 18:00 (times not strictly observed)
• Entrance fee: 150,000 VND per boat (2 foreign passengers, or 4 Vietnamese passengers)
  • Plus 120,000 VND (adult), 60,000 VND (children under 1.4 metres in height)

About Tam Coc Boat Tours

Tam Coc boat tours depart from the Tam Coc Van Lam Pier, which is right in the centre of tourist focused Tam Coc Village. Lots of foreign visitors stay overnight in Tam Coc Village, which tends to be expensive by Vietnamese standards for food and accommodation. Vietnamese tourists, of which there are many, more often than not travel to Tam Coc on coach tours and stay elsewhere overnight.

Tam Coc

Tam Coc boat tours are a major feature of the mass tourism industry in Northern Vietnam. This is a production line tour where everyone follows the same route, and little care or personal attention is given to individual travellers. The people rowing these boats will try, more often than not, to pressure foreign visitors into giving tips or buying unwanted souvenirs from vendors quayside or vendors in boat on the river.

That’s the reality of this attraction. People rowing the boats receive relatively little money for the work they do, which is centrally organised. Tourists come in large numbers despite the frequent reports of unpleasant experiences, and neither the rowers or the organisation managing this attraction have little incentive to provide a pleasant customer experience.

On the positive side, the scenery on a Tam Coc boat tour is very special, and value for money, and it’s an enjoyable experience if you simply ignore the attempts to get you to pay extra money for things.

Tour Boats

Tam Coc boat tours last around 90 minutes, perhaps longer if passengers want to make a stop on route. Outside of the rainy season it gets very hot being out in a boat exposed to direct sunlight for that length of time. As standard, passengers are provided with an umbrella to use as a sun shade, and a life jacket which most people take off during the journey because it is too hot to wear one.

There’s no need to pre-book a Tam Coc boat tour. You simply turn up and queue for a ticket. Once you buy your ticket you make your way through a turnstile onto the harbour where the next available boat and rower will come to pick you up. Most times of the year visitors will be boarding a boat within 10 minutes of joining the queue to buy a ticket.

The boats themselves are flat bottomed metal craft, about 3 metres long by 1 metre wide. There are two wooden seats for passengers, one in front of the other.

As you board the boat you will notice it will tilt quite dramatically. This is normal. These boats are designed for calm waters and manoeuvrability, and are stable enough to go out a slow moving river.

Cave 1

The first part of the Tam Coc boat tour takes out from the busy boat harbour, under a bridge, into an area of wide open fields. This is the busiest area of the river as this where all the tour boats arrive and depart.

As you depart from Tam Coc Village on your right you will see some interesting shrines and other religious buildings. Because they are close to the village a lot of tourists visit these shrines on a bicycle or a motorbike.

Tour boats pass through the first cave about 15 minutes after departure. The cave is slightly higher than the top of an average person’s head when sat down in the boat. The cave is around 20 metres long and 7 metres wide

Cave 2

After emerging from the first cave the scenery becomes a lot more dramatic with the river and narrow fields on either side enclosed by steep sided limestone mountains, reminiscent of the jagged islands of Ha Long Bay.

One of the lesser reported features of a Tam Coc boat tour are the insects, birds, fish and plants that occupy the river and marshy land to the side of the river. The river maybe busy, but the land on either side is pretty much undisturbed by human activity.

The second cave on the Tam Coc Boat tour is a little longer than the first and the cave ceiling is less high. Passengers need to be careful to duck down a little in the boat at certain points during the journey through this cave.

Cave 3

The scenery on route between the second and third caves changes, with more tree cover on either side of the river. The hills on either side of the river also become steeper in places.

At this point in the Tam Coc boat tour, after more than an hour sat outside in the strong sunlight, many visitors to this attraction will be wanting for it to come to an end. The scenery, however, is great.

The third cave on the Tam Coc boat tour is the longest and most exciting of the three caves. The inside of the cave is illuminated by electric lighting, because not only is it dark, but also because the ceiling of the cave is fairly low. Passengers and rowers need to be more careful to avoid banging their heads in this cave than the other caves.

Location of Tam Coc Van Lam Pier

Tam Coc Van Lam Pier is located 5.8 km by road from Ninh Binh Railway Station.