Vietnam: North Central, Phong Nha Caves 24-26 Apr

The next destination was to be Phong Nha Caves in North Central Vietnam. It’s a limestone cave system and a world heritage site, with over three hundred caves totalling 126km, around four hundred million years in the making. The world’s biggest cave was recently discovered here. How amazing does that sound? Yes please. It was a night bus journey again, from Hanoi to Hue with the open tour bus ticket. The closest stop to the caves is actually Dong Hoi, so if you can request to be let off the bus there at around 5am. After another jaw clenching, gut twisting night bus ride they unceremoniously shook us awake and booted us off the bus outside a random hotel on a main road in Dong Hoi, on a hot and muggy morning on Tuesday 24^th April.

Dong Hoi is almost completely off the tourist trail and for that reason is really refreshing to visit. At that early hour families (sometimes four to a bike: Dad driving with a toddler standing up on the footwell in front of him, Mom behind with baby squashed between her and Dad) were driving past on their motorbikes on their way to work or school. Little old ladies were on their push bikes with baskets laden with veggies to sell in the town. Teenagers in their smart school uniforms were taking the long cycle to school. It was a really cosy glimpse of an un-touristic Vietnam town. The hot, pink-red disc of the sun was just poking its head over the horizon and making everything rosy and muggy at the same time. After a few blinks to wake up and a glance at the Lonely Planet to try figure out how the heck we were going to get to Son Trach (the nearest village to the caves, about 60km away) we set off on the walk to the bus station, being thrown plenty of bemused glances by the locals. At the bus station it was revealed to us after scribbling various things on pieces of paper that there were no buses directly to Son Trach. We found out later that there was one a day, at an unspecified time. Everyone was really baffled and interested to find two westerners in their very local bus station, so it obviously didn’t happen often. Taxi drivers offered to drive us there at a great expense (600,000 Dong, around $30), motorbike xe om taxi’s did the same, not at all put off by all our huge backpacks. There were a couple of ladies there who could speak a little English, and they really tried to help us. I love this about Vietnam, everyone tries to help you if they can. If they can speak the tiniest amount of English they’re gather around, collecting a crowd of people all trying to help you as much as they can. One of the shop keepers around the bus station pointed us to a bus that was leaving soon, going to a destination that was apparently close to Son Trach where we could try get another bus there. It only cost around £1.50 so we were straight on it, although not at all sure where it was heading. After about 30km on the bus, it stopped at a turnoff that felt like the middle of nowhere and the driver waved his hand vaguely down a side road and lobbed us and our luggage off. This was no bus station, but only another road that might lead to our destination. Immediately, about six motorbike taxi drivers swarmed around us (how on earth do they do that?) and told us happily that there definitely wasn’t any bus from here to Son Trach, which was around 20km down the road. We went over to a street side cafe to get a second opinion, and everyone was equally adamant, no bus to Son Trach. The guys at the cafe started calling their cousins and mates and then like magic some cars appeared, everyone was clamouring to give us a ride, for around $20. As a last resort I called up Phong Nha Homestay who were listed in Lonely Planet and spoke English, and asked them what the heck we should do. It was still only 7am at this point. They said they would send their driver for $15 to get us and take us there, so we cut our losses with the cheaper option of local transport and that’s how we happened to stay at Phong Nha Homestay.

Phong Nha Homestay is owned by an Australian / Vietnamese couple. It’s the only place properly set out for backpackers looking to explore the area and caves, everywhere else from what I hear are hotels with no English help and slightly tacky tour operators for the caves. The prices are slightly higher than the backpacker trail and they give you a printed out form to read when you arrive to highlight this which is funny. It’s $8 a night for the dorms. Motorbike hire is $15 a day for a semi automatic (quite a beat up one at that) which is more than three times higher than most places in Vietnam but a total necessity around that area, I think. The drinks and food are restaurant prices, and there aren’t any shops or anything within walking distance so if you don’t want to eat their food you’d need to take a bike to the village for something cheaper. They have a main building where you can eat and relax with a pool table and wifi, and a really nice swimming pool. You can watch the beautiful sunsets on the porch overlooking stunning rice paddies and blue hills in the distance too. Their tours are quite expensive too, $35 to see two caves with lunch. All in all it’s a great place to stay, definitely the nicest to explore the caves. On the down side one of the dorms was in an attic with no ceiling and so was sweltering, dripping hot all night with no air con only fans. Also, because you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere you tend to get everything there at the inflated costs, so you do end up spending quite a bit. For two nights, with all meals and drinks and hire of one motorbike between two of us, it cost about $50 each. 

Road to Phong Nha Homestay, turn off for Phong Nha, the most visited cave

View from Phong Nha Homestay porch

The hottest dorm room in the world

You can very easily explore the caves on your own by motorbike. The scenery is stunning and the roads easy. There are plenty of local food places on your way to the caves so you can stop somewhere local for lunch or go to the restaurants near the entrance of the caves. The most visited cave is Phong Nha, and it’s supposed to be a bit full on with tons of Vietnamese tour buses with loudspeakers and the caves adorned with neon, artificial lights. We decided to go the Paradise cave, the less busy and by all accounts the most beautiful cave. We were drawn a map and found it easily enough, it was around a thirty minute bike ride through beautiful, hot scenery of rice and wheat fields, limestone cliffs with dark green jungle and farmlands with happy looking cows and buffalos dotted about. It was rural with hardly any tourists around at all, which was perfect.

On the road to Paradise Cave

On the road to Paradise Cave

On the road to Paradise Cave

When taking the road to Paradise Cave, you have to go through an area that is owned by a private resort so there is a little animosity between the National Park and the resort owner, as he can control who enters the road, which is nuts really. You reach a barrier where there is a security guard,  and you have to tell him that you want to swim in Nuoc Mooc nature trail instead of where you’re really going with is Paradise Cave. You then enter the beautiful limestone cliffs and jungle of the national park, and follow the river on the road and you’ll find Paradise Cave (Thien Duong) on your right hand side. The roads are really good and you can drive your motorbike, with two people, all the way to the parking area, although we were told by someone at Phong Nha Farmstay that you couldn’t due to a steep hill that the bike wouldn’t go up. You pay about $0.25c for parking a motorbike, and it’s properly set out for visitors with toilets and a restaurant at the entrance. Most of the tourists there are Vietnamese or Asian, we were the only Westerners although it was still very quiet, with hardly any visitors although it was meant to be peak season. You can take a little electric car right to the steps to the cave, or you can walk the 1km through a paved road with an amazing variety of butterflies floating and whizzing all around your head. It cost $6 to get into the park (120,000 Dong).

The thick jungle all around the cave entrance

We got to the steps sweltering hot, and then started the ascent. I think there are around five hundred steps, but they’re easy with hand rails and completely shaded by the jungle. Every now and again you’d get a waft of very cold air coming from somewhere deep within the mountain, which felt like an exciting reminder every so often of the deep, cool cave at the top. Eventually we made it to the entrance, and the cold air was coming in big gusts now and lifting the hot hair off my neck, I couldn’t wait to get inside. How the explorer who discovered this cave found it I have no idea, its a tiny cave entrance, merely a deep crack in the rocks, covered by think impenetrable jungle. He must have trawled every inch of the mountain and looked in every nook and cranny, literally. But what a find! You walk through the small gap in the rocks down some stairs and what awaits you once you’re eyes adjust to the dark is hard to imagine. In its entirety, the cave is 31km long, and in some places 100m tall and 150m wide. When you step inside, you gaze down into an absolutely staggering height, going deep into the bowls of the earth. It felt like you were gazing down into the halls of Mordor in the Lord of the Rings. There is understated lighting so you can see all the way in, with some of the stalactites and stalagmites lit up to stand out. Very many people consider this to be the most beautiful cave in the world and I can vouch for that, it is truly staggering, immense, beautiful and humbling, and I am telling anyone travelling in Vietnam, you cannot miss seeing it. Visitors are able to walk 1km into the cave, and the cool, dark, dripping ancient hugeness of it is like having your soul bathe in the most soothing substance imaginable. We walked around in aw, gazing up and around not quite believing the vastness of it. Four hundred million years in the making everyone, the stalactites were what we were feasting our eyes on.  I wish I could take a photograph that could do it justice. And so deadly quiet, really hardly any people at all in the cave. So if you’re travelling on your own, I’d recommend going with a group from Phong Nha Homestay as I can imagine it being a little overwhelming on your own.

Entrance to the cave

Coming out from the cave you are hit by the humidity and heat instantly. It took a while to snap out of the trance that the cave induced. We walked back down to the bike, had a bite at the restaurant at the entrance, and drove off back down the beautiful road to Nuoc Mooc for a swim. If you go back up the road its on the right hand side, and has a small sign and parking area to indicate where it is which you have to look out for otherwise you’d miss it. It’s a nature trail through the river, and has some bamboo walkways and bridges. It costs only $2 (50,000 Dong) and is a really cute place to stop and have a little nature walk. We were there around 1pm so it was really hot, but a little way in there is a perfect swimming spot. It was so quiet without a soul around, and when we got to the swimming spot there was a rapid with a big, cool, dark green  pool at the bottom with weird little ropes and floating rings laid out for swimmers. We thought there was no one there and were about to dive in when we realised that we were being watched by a group of picnicking Vietnamese guys from the behind some rocks, where a hut and a picnic area had been set up. Doh! Quiet remote swim fail! We jumped in though anyway as it looked so deep and inviting after the hot walk, but then decided to walk further down the river after guys started diving off rocks right next to me, and talking very loudly in a language I didn’t understand while pointing at me and chuckling. Not a favourite trait of mine in strangers when I’m scantily dressed in swimwear. They were left behind and after climbing mountain goat style over some boulders in the middle of the river bed, we found a really nice secluded spot with a big smooth boulders to sit out (although they were scorching hot) and a deep pool to dip in. The water was so clean and refreshing and a beautiful dark green colour. I lay like a lizard on the rocks and dipped in every time the heat got too much, and in this way a seriously pleasant couple of hours were spent.

We got back to the Homestay for sunset and a dip in their pool, and had some yummy dinner, settled the bill and got ready to the picked up at 6am the next morning for the next leg, to Hue. You can book the bus through the Farmstay and it costs around $7 (150, 000 Dong), It leaves around 6am and gets you to Hue in relatively one piece in around four hours.

Paradise Cave and the Phong Nha area was absolutely a highlight of Vietnam. It’s in a remote place which makes you feel like you’re seeing the real beauty of Vietnam without the hordes of Western tourists. You can easily and freely ride motorbikes to the caves to explore, and the immense and totally overwhelming beauty of Paradise cave is worth the extra mission to get there. We were told to give Phong Nha cave with its stacks of tourists and artificial light a miss and only go to Paradise, so while I didn’t see Phong Nha I can say what everyone else thinks who has. In short, visit there.

Here are the pics.