Making plans for Phong Nha

At four o’clock in the morning the overnight bus from Ninh Binh arrived in Phong Nha. Luckily the bus stopped in front of my hostel so I didn’t have to worry about getting a taxi to the hostel in the middle of the night.

After checking in, which took a while because some people from the bus were in the same hostel as me, I went straight to sleep and didn’t wake up until nine o’clock.

First I went to breakfast. Then I informed myself at the reception what I can do in Phong Nha. I then received a booklet in which all activities and tours were listed in detail with prices. There are numerous caves to visit around Phong Nha. Therefore, some day trips were offered from the hostel to visit these caves.

I then first tried to find out which of the caves are the most beautiful and worth seeing. Then I calculated whether it would make more sense to visit the caves myself or to book a tour. Of course it was cheaper to do it all alone and since I had enough time anyway, I wanted to split it all up into two days and not squeeze everything into one whole day with one tour.

Two girls in my room felt the same way, they were also busy trying to figure out if a tour was even worth it.

Visiting the Phong Nha Cave

Finally I decided to visit the Phong Nha Cave the next day. This could only be visited by boat. Since the boat harbor was not far from my hostel, I could even walk there and didn’t have to rent a scooter or a bike.

At 12 o’clock I went to the port. There I bought my ticket for the boat tour into the cave. At the same time, the two girls from my hostel room also arrived at the ticket office. Together we were then on a boat with a few other tourists.

From the jetty we drove across the river for quite a while until we finally arrived at the cave. But the view was so beautiful that I didn’t even notice how long the boat tour really took.

Paddling through the cave

After the little boat trip we finally arrived at the cave. Once inside the cave we could already see all the bats flying on the ceiling. The roof of the boat was then opened, so we had a better view.

While the motor-driven boat crossed the river, we were paddled across the water inside the cave. The local women stood at the front of the boat with long paddles and paddled through the cave. I can imagine it being incredibly difficult to paddle a boat with 12 people all by yourself.

Paddling through the cave was really a great experience. I’ve visited caves before, but so far I’ve never been through one of these caves in a boat. After paddling through the cave for a while, we were dropped off at a point where we could walk a bit through the cave.

At the end we were picked up by the boat in front of the cave and then drove back across the river to the jetty. From there I went back to the hostel. I then spent the rest of the evening with my book by the pool in the hostel. In the evening I went to eat in a restaurant not far from the hostel.

Visiting the dark cave

The next morning after breakfast I got ready and packed my things for the day because I wanted to visit another cave. The night before, a girl in my room recommended that I should visit the Dark Cave instead of the Paradise Cave as it would be more adventurous and not just walk through. Since three other girls in my room had the same plan as me for the day, we decided to visit the Dark Cave together.

We then took a taxi, which brought us to the cave. I would have rented a scooter too, but none of the other girls could ride a scooter.

Arrived at the Dark Cave, we wanted to book a tour. We had two options: either we could visit the cave and also go canoeing and ziplining, or we could skip the cave visit and just do the activities. However, the waiting time for the cave was 40 minutes, since a group of 20 people had to form first. But since we all really wanted to see the cave, we decided to wait.

In the end we didn’t wait too long before we were allowed to go zipling. We slipped over the river and the forest. Personally, I found the zipling to be extremely fast, but it was still a lot of fun.

The adventurous Dark Cave

From Zipling we went to the Dark Cave. We could only reach it by swimming there. The water we had to swim through to the cave was freezing cold. So I was happy that it wasn’t more than 20 meters that we had to swim.

Once we climbed out of the water, we headed into the cave. The entrance was really impressive. We all had helmets with flashlights attached. As soon as we had turned them all on, we went further and further into the cave. We walked through water and through mud. The rock walls were sometimes so narrow that we had to really squeeze through the corridors. We wouldn’t have seen anything there without our flashlights.

At the end of the long adventurous tunnel was a small pool where we could swim. At first I was happy to be able to wash all the mud off my body, but in the end the water was so dirty that we actually just bathed in mud. From there we turned around and left the cave again. At the exit, canoes were already waiting for us with which we then paddled across the river. We then had time to swim in the water, slide and try some other water activities.

After the tour we sat down in a restaurant before we took a taxi back to the hostel. But I only changed my clothes there briefly, since we then drove on to the Duck Stop.

Visiting the famous duck stop

Together with two of the girls with whom I had visited the Dark Cave and a friend of the two, we then drove to the Duck Stop with the scooter.

The Duck Stop is a farm where ducks are kept. The farm is run by the locals. They offer visitors the opportunity to play with the ducks, feed them and then be served a typical traditional Vietnamese meal for just 100K Dong / $6.30 AUD.

Visiting the Duck Stop was really a lot of fun. You stand in a flock of ducks and can throw their food to them. Then you are the so-called duck leader. We also got a foot massage from the ducks, where we were supposed to sit on a bench and then the ducks‘ food was thrown right in front of our feet. When the ducks peck at their feet with their beaks, it’s a pretty strange feeling at first, but it doesn’t hurt at all. I also never thought that the ducks are so soft.

After all the ducks were fed, we got the traditional Vietnamese pancakes. It actually tasted pretty good. After the meal we drove back to the hostel. There we spent the evening by the pool and then also had dinner there.

The next day I took the bus to Hue at 12 noon. Since there were no normal buses, I had to take the sleeperbus. I had only booked one night in Hue because I wanted to continue to Hoi An from there via the Hai Van Pass.

If you would like to know what I experienced on the Hai Van Pass, please read my next blog post 180 Kilometers along the Hai Van Pass – Vietnam Travel Diary.