Monday 10th April
Arrived at lunch time and got collected from the village centre by the man who runs our home stay, Village House. They made us lunch while our room was being made ready. It was noodle soup with egg. We went for a short bike ride into town using the free hire bikes. They were all a bit broken and it was a case of trying to find the most functioning one. Dan had to walk his back as the chain was loose and kept coming off. After that it was a nice bike ride. After that we went for a swim in the river. In the evening we enjoyed the family meal. The sweet and sour aubergine and tomato was particularly nice.
Tuesday 11th April
Got up and had breakfast early before our tour. We both had noodle soup and it was the same as we had had for lunch the previous day. I had coffee and it tasted like they had but Baileys in rather than milk!
The tour picked us up at 8.30am and stopped on the way do we could take photos of the river. The first stop was the botanical gardens. The gardens were forest with lits of different plant and animal species. It smelt very herbal there- perhaps of menthol. We scrambled down some rocks to reach a waterfall, gave some photos taken and go for a paddle.
Next stop was the Paradise cave. There were around 530 steps to climb up to get to the cave so had some good exercise! The cave itself is absolutely amazing- its 31KMs long and has beautiful stalactite and stalagmite formations. The public, lit-up part if the cave is just the first kilometer and this was the part we visited.
For lunch we went to a restaurant that brought a big tray of BBQ food, rice and salad to be shared and to make spring rolls with. It was the tastiest pork I have ever had!
In the afternoon we visited the dark cave. This started with a zip line ride to bear the cave entrance. The zip line is the longest in Vietnam. Then you swim to the cave entrance and can have some fun climbing a tree to jump in if you wish. You paddle through shallow water in some of the cave, then go through a narrow sandy tunnel to the muddy part. You go further into the mud until you are floating in it. You can't sink either, it holds you up! After a few minutes we turned all our lights off briefly to float about in the dark. On the way out we had a quick swim to wash the mud off ourselves and then went in canoes back to the main bank. There were various activities there, an assault course, water biking, and more zip lines. We had about 30mins there and then got dried off and went back to the minibus. The bus was having trouble getting the engine started but succeeded after about 5mins. The bus stopped on the way back so we could see the view from the bridge. There was a horrible smell on the way up, and I looked down and people had been dumping their rubbish, one bin bad had a dead dog inside it with the rest of the trash and its legs sticking out. It was awful. I'd like to go back to see the sunset from the bridge but don't want to see or smell that again. I don't understand why you would put a dead animal as large as that in with your trash and then throw it at the side of the road to rot half in a plastic bag.
We had the family meal for dinner again.
Wednesday 12th April
We went with Peter from San Fransisco (who we had been caving with the day before) and we met up with Isabel, who we first met in Da Lat, who had Elsa from Paris with her. Formed a larger group at the boat ticket office and got a boat to the caves. You paid per boat so the more people, up to maximum of 12, the better. The boat stopped outside Phong Nha cave and removed it's roof so we could get a good view when in the cave. As we went in they turned off the engine and switched to paddling. The cave is huge and truly awesome and also very peaceful. The whole place is uplit with bright electrical lighting. On the way back out of the cave we were dropped off to have a walk around the dry part. This part was even more incredible. One we had seen the inside we left the cave and headed up a few hundred very steep steps to get to Tien Son cave. We had to have a few quick stops on the way up to catch our breath. There were little shops part way up- I've no idea how they managed to get the large freezers for ice cream up there! Tien Son cave was just as spectacular as Paradise cave, and it was really peaceful as Dan and I, Isabel, Peter and Elsa were the only ones in it! It was nice and cool too after all the stairs up to it. On the way back down we bumped into Martin from Holland again. He's the guy we first met when we shared a tuktuk tour in Phnom Penh to S21 and the Killing Fields. We then met him again when he stayed at Cozy Nook hostel in Da Lat. We met up with the rest of the group and got the boat back to town. I had a little nap on the way back, with a life jacket making a good pillow on the back of the chair in front. By the time we got back it was tipping it down and we all made a dash for somewhere to have lunch. We found somewhere that claimed to do the best BBQ pork around and the group decided to go there. It was just us, Isabel and Peter by this point. The food was alright but Dan picked better than me- mine was far too salty for me and we swapped meals part was through as Dan's lovely! Our meals were the same except mine was rice and his was noodle, and the rice seemed to have absorbed all the salt. Part way through the meal Martin from Rotterdam turned up again!
Thursday 13th April
After check-out we went for a bike ride and decided to go all the way to Phong Nha cave, a 13.5Km round trip. It was a beautiful bike ride and very peaceful. We had a really late lunch at 3pm (when happy hour started) at the best pizza place in the village...they actually have a wood fired oven! Only basic pizzas in happy hour so we had a margherita and Hawian, each came with a free beer! As we cycled back to our home stay it started to rain so we raced back.
We had the family dinner, I had a shower, and then we got the night bus to Hanoi. The night bus was much more comfortable this time as I took my inflatable pillow on with me, and there was also a toilet on board. The driver was a very angry man though, shouting at passengers over where they should sit and telling people to go where there was no beds. Everyone was muttering that it was going to turn into 'a United Airlines'. He drove with road rage too, swaying the bus about so it was hard for people on the top beds to not fall out...in the end he knocked an hour off the journey!
