Small-Group Ban Gioc Waterfall Day Trip by Car with Craft Village and Angel Mountain

The day opens early, at 6:15, with a Cao Bang breakfast: rice paper, duck noodle soup or sour noodle. By 6:45 the car is on the road through the Cao Bang Global Geopark, a UNESCO-designated area, climbing to Ma Phuc Pass and then following village roads where old stilt houses stand. The group is small, and the guide is local. The first stop is a paper-making or forging village, where visitors can step into a stilt house, try the craft and hear how people there live. The drive then continues along a quiet road with few trucks or containers, through villages of the Tay, Nung and Dao peoples, before Nguom Ngao Cave (Tiger Cave) at 11:30. Its stone columns formed over hundreds of millions of years, and the stalactites have been compared to a tiger, a lotus, a boat, a cactus and a jellyfish. Lunch is at the Thac Ban Gioc Restaurant. Truc Lam Zen Monastery comes next, with a climb to the pagoda for a view of the waterfall, the Chinese glass bridge on one side and Vietnamese rice fields on the other. At Ban Gioc a boat goes close to the falls, and the border between the two countries runs through the middle of the river. The return to Cao Bang takes a different road, with a stop for sunset at Angel Mountain, and the day ends with dinner in the city between 18:00 and 19:00. Guests who want to ride a motorbike themselves must show a licence and sign a commitment form covering accidents.