The next stop on our journey brought us to Phong Nha, home of the world's largest cave systems. We arrived there early afternoon after taking the 4 hour ride on a mini-bus from Hue. Hard to imagine a 4 hour bus ride feeling short, but after the last couple it definitely felt that way. We checked into this cool little hostel that had a great atmosphere about it.
After having some lunch, we decided to go and check out Phong Nha cave. We headed down to the boat pier to try and find some other travellers to split the cost of the boat we needed to take into the caves. After no such luck and what we were told was the last boat headed there (by miracle more came later), we decided to just pay and check it out. It didn't cost a ton of money but when you are traveling for a long time, you try and decrease the costs as you go. In other words, we have become even more cheap than we were before this trip.
It was raining by the time we left on our boat but it had a roof so it was all good. Our two lady boat drivers were quite nice and cute. Phong Nha has only really seen tourists for about 4 years or so and they are all quite happy to see you. Not jaded like many other areas of Asia. Anyways, we followed the river that was coming right out a cliff and continued into the cave.
The boat motor was shut off and our lovely guides moved us along with poles. The cave was lit up with flood lights all over the place showing off some the coolest cave formations I have seen.
We continued until we hit a impassible spot and turned around. On the way back we pulled the boat over to the side and went on a small hike inside the cave.
That night Gustav arrived on the afternoon bus. He had booked a 3 day exploration of the caves where you camp inside but there wasn't enough people to do the trip. He decided to join a two day trip instead and join us the next day.
Instead of joining a tour (because of our cheapness), we decided we would rent scooters once again and do a tour of our own. Steve, who we had met in Hoi An, had talked about it and said it was quite fun. After getting some fuel, we set off.
The scenery was quite awesome with the karst formations and the rice fields with meandering rivers and streams throughout.
It took us around 1 hour drive to get to our first cave of the day which is known as Paradise Cave. Like the Phong Nha cave, there were lights throughout so you could see all the different formations. We had heard it can be very busy here, so we tried to time our arrival around lunch time to hopefully decrease the amount of people around. There were still quite a few people around, but a few less than I was expecting. It was a very large cave and took us 2 hours to tour around. We were going quite slow as Gustav and Roberta turned into the paparazzi.
After this we continued on the loop to the Dark Cave where we had some lunch before. Our scooter was also burning a lot more fuel than the previous one we rented so we had to go on a short fuel run.
To enter the cave, we flew across the water on a couple hundred meter zip line. Then we jumped into the water for a short swim to the entrance. As indicated by the name, there were no lights in this cave so we wore hard hats with lights on them. Our guide took us through a small passage in the wall that led to a natural mud bath. Just before the pool there was a natural slide that plopped you right in the mud.It was up over my navel and was the consistency of pudding. You could just sit in it and float without touching the hard bottom. We also were swimming through it which was a real weird feeling since it was so thick.
After getting as dirty as possible, we headed out to the main part of the cave and jumped into the water for a swim. We swam until the end of the cave, turned off our lights, and swam back in complete darkness. Just aiming for the small amount of light that seemed way off in the distance.
Upon exiting the cave, we jumped on kayaks to get back over the water that we zip lined over earlier. Before setting off, we watched three Vietnamese girls go in a figure-eight about 10 minutes trying to figure out how to go straight. It was quite ridiculous.
After swimming for a bit, it was time to start heading back as it was getting later in the afternoon and we were hoping to get back before dark. We were climbing quite a large hill when we noticed Gustav had fallen back, so we waited a bit and he didn't come.
So we went down the twisting road to find him pushing his motor bike. Apparently it had stalled out while climbing the hill and it would not start again. We both tried with no luck. Gustav then called the guy that he rented from and he just hung up. A guy on a motorbike passed us and we flagged him down to talk to the rental guy cause he was having difficulty with English. So through hand signals we figured that the rental guy would be there in 20 minutes. A group of 3 Vietamese guys came along in another 10 mins and stopped to try and help us. There was a lot of hand-shaking and high fives going on with them speaking Vietamese and us speaking English.
While we were standing there one of the guys lost control of his bike down the hill and he ended up in the drainage ditch with his bike pinning him down! We got him and his motor bike out and it seemed like the only thing hurt was his pride. They took off after that. We waited another 30 mins or so when the renters showed up with another bike for Gustav and we took off while they looked at the bike. I could tell Gustav was a little rattled but everything worked out. That's why it's good to cruise around in pairs. It was getting pretty dark by this time and the amount of bugs hitting my face increased exponentially.
When we arrived back at the hostel, we endulged in a birthday supper for Roberta. I think she was quite happy about how she spent her birthday. Two hours later we hopped on a night bus headed for Hanoi.
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