Kenh Ga is 21km from Ninh Binh off the road to Cuc Phuong National Park. Follow Hwy 1A north for 11km, then it’s a 10km drive west to reach the boat pier. Hotels in Ninh Binh can arrange tours, often through fantastic back roads with wonderful scenery.

The village of Kenh Ga (Chicken Canal) gets its name, apparently, from the number of wild chickens that used to live here. It’s a lovely area, and one of the best places outside of the Mekong Delta to see river life – but nowhere in the Delta will you find stunning limestone formations like the ones providing the backdrop here. Another difference: people in Kenh Ga row boats with their feet, leaning back and watching the world go by.

The local people seem to spend most of their lives on or in the water: at their floating fish-breeding pens, harvesting river grass used for fish feed, trawling in the muddy shallows for shellfish or selling veggies boat-to-boat. Even the children commute to school by boat. The river is used for every­thing from bathing, to washing plucked chickens, to defecating in.

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Sights in Ninh Binh

Hoa Lu- Ninh Binh  | Tam Coc- Ninh Binh  | Cuc Phuong National Park | Van Long Natural Reserve | Kenh Ga (Chicken Canal) Ninh Binh | Phat Diem | Bai Dinh Pagoda