Vietnam: South, Na Trang, Mui Ne & Saigon 1-8 May 12

Na Trang & Mui Ne 1-6 May

We wanted to go straight to Mui Ne from Hoi An and miss out Na Trang completely. It has a really big beautiful beach there and for this reason hordes of holidaymaker from far and wide come to sunbathe, drink and ponce about. Its a really popular party stop for SE Asia gap year yar yars so if that’s your thing then you’d love it there. With the open bus ticket I had you could only book your next leg from the actual office in the town where its leaving from. So to book Hoi An to Na Trang (the next stop on the open tour bus) I had to do it from the office in Hoi An. I couldn’t book Na Trang to Mui Ne other than at the office in Na Trang, which was really frustrating. We were told to get off the night bus at around 5.30am and go straight to the office in Na Trang to book the Mui Ne Bus leaving at 7am. But when we got there we were told that we had to book a day in advance, and couldn’t get on that morning’s bus, so staying one night in Na Trang it had to be. The bus company can sometimes not interested in helping you out at all, but it is really the cheapest way to get through Vietnam.

We found a hotel near the beach, $10 for a room for two people, and I set off to explore the party town. It’s a big city with not much to distinguish itself other than the main Western tourist drag with hotels and hostels, Western food places of all description and a lot of bars and a lot of pissed people. If you’re in the mood for this, its brilliant. When you’re not, its annoying. I found the beach which was huge and quite nice, and watched the sun go down as the crowds went off to eat in Lonely Planet recommended eateries. And that was the extent of my stay in Na Trang, and it was more than enough for me. We went back to the same bus office early next morning and waited on the same benches for the bus, and finally and thankfully got going to Mui Ne.

Chillaxing Vietnam style in Na Trang

Na Trang beach, after the hordes have gone home

Something colourful for the beach anyone?

Mui Ne is another beach town, but is completely different to Na Trang. Its famous for kite surfing, and there are tons of courses and kite surfing schools although they are hideously expensive, around $60 an hour for a lesson and you need hours to even stand up on a board and get the kite in the air. Its laid out on one really, really long stretch of one road. Here I found more of a backpacker atmosphere minus the hordes of annoying party drunkards. There is also a backpacker hostel here, Mui Ne Backpackers for $6 a night in a shared dorm, and they have private rooms too with two beds for around $15 facing the beach if you want something slightly more luxurious. There are some cute beach restaurants around, one next to the backpackers called Joe’s Bar had live music every night (mainly acoustic covers, but cute) and great breakfasts, and also real wine. It was $3 a glass but its so rare out here I couldn’t help but treat myself.

Mui Ne Backpackers - Flashpacking

The one long street in Mui Ne

Down the south side of the one long beach road, are tons of posh resorts for Russians. Russians in their hundreds, apparently this is the place to come if you’re Russian and on holiday and want some beach and kitesurfing. All the shops and menus were written in Russian in this area, even the Vietnamese spoke to you in Russian. It was bizarre. Down the North end of the street was everyone else other than Russians. I met some fun people in the hostel; two English guys who had been there for a month becoming kitesurfing instructors, some Swedish guys who had just done their course and an older Austrain lady who seemed very demure, but when we went out that night she partied like there was no tomorrow! We did a run of the bars in town after eating some delicious Vietnamese sea food barbecue, and it was such a funny mix of overly made up Russian girls with their butch boyfriends, Asian holidaymakers and European backpackers dancing around being idiots, and I had a lot of fun. I also met two 19 year old Canadian guys who had their own business and only worked six months of the year and were rich enough to travel the rest of the time from the money they made. They had developed their own lemonade (bless!) and now had stalls in all the major festivals in Canada selling it. They had people working for them and everything, how cool is that.

DJ rocking out in Mui Ne

Night out with the Swedes in Mui Ne

The other thing to do in Mui Ne other than kitesurfing is to see some amazing sand dunes. They are huge and expansive and multicoloured. We took a tour with the hostel, Mui Ne Backpackers, it was only $8 and they drive you to some great spots over four hours (bring a hat if you do this, its four hours outside in the scorching heat.) You can hire dune buggies for the extortionate cost of $20 but its easy enough to walk to the top of the white dunes. Around these parts it didn’t feel like Vietnam at all, really dry and desert-like with sand, with the occasional shock of green farm or blue lake. You can watch the sunset from the red dunes which is the last stop, an incredible spot to watch those ever dazzling and humbling skies of SE Asia. Also some advice for the ladies... beware! I had the scariest leg wax in the entire world at a place called Good Spa. I was led to the back by no less than five women, with only a curtain to shield me from the men of the house. They all stood over me and proceeded to scald me to death with extremely hot wax, and then pull it off very, very slowly with excruciating pain. The worst part is, they only waxed about 10% of it, the rest of the time they ran a blade (not razor, a unprotected blade) over my legs to ‘clean’ the skin and in the process diced me a few times. It was extremely painful and traumatic, and when I eventually leapt from the table at the end I saw that I had some cuts. I only paid them $18 out of the promised $25, although that was essentially $18 to shave my legs. Worst wax experience ever, go to a recommended place if at all.

Dune walk

Quick sand

VERY hot

Road to the sand dunes

White dunes

Amazing sunset on red dunes

We stayed three nights in Mui Ne Backpackers and that was more than enough to get the flavour of the place. It was time to head to final destination of Vietnam, and not a day too soon. I was itching to leave and find Cambodia.

Saigon 6-8 May

Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) is the capital of Vietnam, and is a huge sprawling city with lots of traffic and motorbikes. People say its more intense in that sense than Ha Noi in the North, but I found the opposite. The streets are bigger and there are pavements to walk on, whereas in Ha Noi everything and everyone is piled onto the streets and there is nowhere at all to walk except in the thick of traffic. I was mainly stopping here as a place to cross the border by bus to Cambodia so I only spent two nights and one day there. Emily was waiting for us there and so we shared a hotel room in the main tourist drag, you can get a pretty descent hotel for around $21 a night sharing with three people. The street has tons of places to eat and of course the life blood for travellers which is the cheaper than chips Bia Hoi for a thrifty $30c a glass. We met some people and sat on the tiny red plastic chairs and had some cheery rounds. At one point Emily disappeared into one of the bars to use the loo and ended up doing an impromptu open mic set with the guitar they had set up there. We went to a late night club with some friends where someone had a laptop set up so you could choose the songs like a jukebox, and danced the night away. I didn’t explore the city much at night, but kept on getting warned about people driving by on scooters and snatching bags, and this happened a lot so beware! During the day we went to the war museum and looked at some American war machines and the photography exhibition, and although the displays had a distinctly propagandist edge its a must see if not to remind us all how horrible and pointless war is (if you need any reminding).  We all caught the early morning bus to Sihanoukville in Cambodia the next day, as I really wanted some island beach time before heading into central Cambodia. The visa on the border is supposed to cost $20 but we were charged $25 although I hear people get scammed a few extra dollars than that at times so it was shrugged off. But it was a pretty smooth bus ride, only getting off at the border to walk through the gates into the next country and then straight back on the bus. It cost around $15.

Bia Hoi life blood

Emily playing out

Why are all buildings in Vietnam so long and thin?

War museum - Farigo hates war

Avocado shake in the market - yum

I spent 25 days in Vietnam which was around 10 days more than planned. Everyone who goes there does the same route, starting in the North. Hanoi, Halong Bay, Sapa, Phong Nha (although this is very much off the main beaten traveller track, and isn’t a stop on the open bus ticket) Na Trang, Mui Ne, Saigon. Or vice versa, starting in Saigon. I really didn’t like that you had to do the same route and stops as everyone else, top to bottom, but it’s hard to avoid that really unless you hire a motorbike and do the country that way. I actually found it much touristier and processed travelling than Thailand, which is surprising because Thailand is such a tourist hub. Maybe its because you can hop around in Thailand, make your own itinerary up as you go along, and avoid the busiest hubs if you want and find the road less travelled easier there.

Vietnam wrapped up... If I could have my time back again, I would only spend two weeks in Vietnam and only do one night in Halong Bay, two days in Hoi An unless you want clothes made, and miss out Na Trang completely. Definitely visit Phong Nha/Dong Hoi and Sapa, and try hire a motorbike at least once in the northern hills or around Phong Nha and go off into the unknown. But this is only if you want a slightly more alternative travelling experience and want to miss out the hordes and pissheads! Vietnamese people in rural areas are very lovely and friendly even though they can’t speak English, but in the cities and main tourist hubs they don’t seem as interested in interacting with you, rather wanting just to hastily finish whatever transaction you are making with them (although of course there were some friendly, very helpful people everywhere, especially if they felt confident in speaking English) so I really missed the friendly, broken exchanges with people that I’ve found elsewhere in SE Asia. There always seems to be five people working in one quiet shop. I love though how in every business, shop or restaurant the whole family seems to live, so there is always granny or baby sleeping on a mat or watching telly while you have your lunch. The culture and towns seemed to be too same same for me, maybe a result of communism wiping out most of the spirituality or individuality? All in all its an great place, having gone through so much but the people so industrious and hard working and with some stunning natural beauty. Try go off the beaten track if you can!

Here are the pics.

Vietnam: Central/South, Hue & Hoi An 26 Apr - 1 May

Hue 26-28 Apr

Phong Na Homestay organised the local bus service for us to Hue for Dong 150k / $7. The pickup time was around 6.30am although they tell you to be ready from 5.15am. The driver rattled and honked at great speeds to the main road where the main bus was waiting with it packed full of locals glaring at us, we were clearly late although it waited all the same. It took four hours and I got a few more fillings rattled out my teeth and had a few more black outs from fright of near death as trucks accelerated towards us head on and then swerved at the last millisecond, but other than that the journey was alright, there is pretty scenery in these parts.

The city of Hue turned out to be one of my favourite places in Vietnam, although I wouldn’t have expected it from reading about it beforehand. Between 1802 and 1945 it was the imperial city of the Nguyen Dynasty and at a time became the shaky capital of Vietnam to try join the hands of North and South, and was subsequently ravaged by both the Viet Cong, the French and the Americans war. We saw some really disturbing photographs of soldiers, tanks and fighting in the war museum in Saigon, on the very streets we were tramping around. So almost the whole city is new except for the walled palace and fortress of the Imperial City. It turned out to be a really cool place to wander around, it’s a really easy city to explore and feels like a well operating, modern city but with all the little idiosyncrasies that make it bustling Vietnam and nowhere else. The tourists are all tucked away South of the river in Pham Ngu Lao.

Vroom!

Children waiting to be picked up at nursery

The city walls

Cutting up a pineapple for us, Hue main market

It costs around $4 to visit the Imperial City, and it was good to see something so old and historical in a place where most things were blasted to smithereens. It’s a quiet, big and ghostly collection of old historical buildings so if that isn’t your thing then it probably won’t excite you. If not have a wander East within the citadel walls to the market for some Vietnamese city flavours. There are many tours to be had on motorbikes around and outside of Hue to visit some historical war sites too, and also boat trips.

Imperial City

Imperial City

Imperial City - Farigo being fierce with the dragons

Imperial City

The most fun thing that we did in Hue though was to hire bicycles with our new friend David from our hostel for $1.50, to set off to try find some temples and pagodas that were spared the bombs dotted around South of the city. (The bicycles were pretty flimsy though, David had to have his handlebars screwed back on and the bike serviced en route for another $1.50) We had a really inadequate map from the Lonely Planet and rode off, trying to figure out roads and directions with some difficulty. Always bring a compass. We went into the heart of Hue’s non tourist city dwellings which was good fun, and stopped at a ‘vegan’ restaurant for some pho soup which was delicious, gesturing and pointing and getting the one guy who could speak a little English to help with the ordering. He brought over some pork crackling though as a treat, which makes their vegan credentials pretty shaky! We rode through busy streets and then quiet lanes and eventually found ourselves on a road leading out into the countryside, where we saw an expansive catholic graveyard and a huge, imposing statue of a past dynastic ruler on the hill which we stopped at to have a look at. There was a hill next to this monument, and we could see where we’d come from and the city centre but had no idea where these pagodas were. After gazing out into the distance we did see one poking out the trees though and set off to find it. One of the best things about hiring a bike in a city is that you can just ride around to wherever looks interesting and stop at whim, so we ended up seeing some strange and interesting holy places and shrines on the way. Some teenage boys started following us and pointing us in different directions trying to figure out what we were looking for. It was quite funny, thinking we could see in the distance what we were looking for and then getting there and being more lost. 

Huge monument

View from the hill

The whole family rides motorbikes - getting lost in Hue

Vegan pho

The grounds of a strange holy site - getting lost in Hue

Eventually we found a small side road where the boys were frantically pointing us to, and went down it. It turned out to be a road to a temple, although not one at all on the map. It was a collection of strange temples and a practising Buddhist monastery. It seemed that every sect, tradition and era was represented on these grounds, with old and new buildings, fat and thin Buddha’s, colourful statues, demure shrines, brightly painted fake mannequins, ponds with strange holy features, just a mishmash of everything and anything Buddhist. It was great! We spent ages walking around and looking at it all, up hills and around corners and into buildings. There was a statue of a Thai monk who was obviously a guru to this temple, as they had an absolutely terrifyingly lifelike statue of him in one of the temples. It was so real, that when I first saw it I thought there was a man there meditating, and when David and Stu were poking his face and telling me that he was in such a deep trance that he didn’t mind, I was shocked and didn’t want to go near him to disturb him. Even when I found out it wasn’t real I didn’t believe it and was too scared to touch it. Better than any Madame Tussauds waxwork, that’s for sure. What a strange experience! The boys were still there laughing and talking broken English to us, and pointing at things for us to look at and being funny. We cycled home through some treacherous rush hour traffic (you just have to go with the flow, if you just go all the trucks, bikes, tuk tuks, buses and trucks will just miraculously go around you. Just do not hesitate) It was a really great day getting lost and seeing the non tourist side of a good Vietnamese city. I highly recommend it.

Our bikes at the gates to the temple

Weird water feature in the temple

Weird mannequins in temple

Farigo paying his respects to the guru

The insanely real mannequin of the monk 

We stayed in Hue Backpackers which has really nice rooms that have lots of secure storage and little extras that make staying in a hostel nice; like aircon and clean comfy beds. It was David’s birthday so the staff went out and got him a cake and made everyone sing and then gave us some free drinks which was really nice of them. It’s a good place to meet other travellers and have some good ol’ western food. There aren’t many places like it other than Hanoi, so take advantage of meeting people and having some familiar comforts while you can in Hue. It cost $6 a night.

Hoi An 28 Apr – 1 May

We got the bus the next day to Hoi An which took around five hours. The buses definitely get more comfortable and sane the further south you go in Vietnam. There was a public holiday on that weekend, and so most hotels and buses were completely booked up and there were people piled in the aisles of the bus with a general holiday spirit in the air. Hoi An is what I’d call a ‘chocolate box’ town. Its an intact and ancient city with original quaint architecture, famous for being a historic trading port that avoided being annihilated war, trading all those romantic commodities of olden time voyages to the east... silk, spices, sugar, tea, porcelain. But mostly now it’s probably famous for tailors and because of that there are hundreds of them. 

I booked one of the only hotels that was available after all the local holidaymakers descended for their long weekend, Dai Long hotel. They all seem pretty much the same, around $15 for an aircon room and if you’re lucky there’s a nice pool too. There are no backpacker hostels in Hoi An but you can get a single room for $6 if you look around. The group of us (Emily, David who we met in Hue, Kylie and Steve Emily’s friends from Hoi An) spent three nights there, and actually I felt like that was too much and I was heartily sick of it by the end although some people absolutely dote on it and want to stay weeks. In its defence, It is a very pretty place, with very sweet old buildings and architecture. 

Lanterns in Hoi An

You can carry anything on a motorbike, including a huge lantern

Bridges in Hoi An

The old town is buzzing with tourists and there were some street theatre going on, with instruments and games and people clapping and cheering, but I had no idea what they were all about. There are some really nice (but expensive) places to eat, although you can find local food too and not just eat at the tourist spots. We hired a bike one day and cycled round the old town, I really wanted to find a shoemaker to make me some hardy leather sandals, but most of the places I looked at had tons of shoes but made in a very quick way with weak materials, for the hordes of tourists. I finally happened upon a little shop tucked away where an old lady was sitting with a sewing machine, and I saw in her window some sandals like I wanted so I stopped to have a chat. I showed a very blurry picture off the internet and in no time she was measuring my feet and pointing at bits of leather and straps. Her husband was going to do the making, and he arrived to point at more materials and colours, as there was no English between them. I thought that might be a mistake, there were plenty of tailors in the town who could speak good English, but I loved the look of them. The cost was $35 and I was to come back the next day to check on progress. I came in the next day and sure enough the talented man had made a replica of the really unclear picture I showed him, which was amazing. Without any English he had made almost exactly what I wanted, and for that he definitely deserved my $35. Hopefully these shoes will last me five months of Asia trodding.

Measuring 

My shoemaker in Hoi An

New shoes!

Another day we all hired motorbikes and set off for An Bang Beach, which was supposed to be the prettier, quieter beach away from the riff raff of the main beach in Hoi An. It only took around 15 min to ride there, and it was a really nice beach but quite busy still with lots of restaurants and deck chairs laid out. But the water was clean and still and great to swim in after the hot ride. We got back on the bikes and rode into the sunset North West, although that turned out to be a huge stretch of half finished resorts along the beaches. We rode into one, a ghostly huge shell of a half finished resort, and did some off road sand motorbiking, skidding and throwing sand into the air and at times getting completely stuck, it was really fun. But we were promptly chased off the property by the security guard. We sped back to town before dark with the wind whipping us around, such a nice feeling of motorbiking freedom, zipping fast down a good road.

An Bang Beach Hoi An

Hoi An is a pretty town, but way too ‘twee’ for my liking. There were no backpacker hostels, and it was filled mostly couples on a short break to Vietnam so I felt a bit like a stray mongrel in a poodle parlour. Its perfect for a romantic getaway, where you can walk along the river amongst the lanterns holding hands and talking about how much money you’ve spent on getting clothes made... needless to say not really for me. I was glad to leave.

Here are pics of Hue (after the Phong Na pics)
And here are the Hoi An pics (before Mui Ne pics)

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.