Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng, Vietnam
Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng is a national park in north-central Vietnam.
To get down there from Hanoi, we booked a couple seats on a sleeper bus with Camel Travel. This company gets some absolutely horrific reviews on TripAdvisor but their competitors don’t appear to fair any better. We reluctantly agreed to go with this service after a recommendation from our hotel (and an assurance that the bus wasn’t as bad as people had said it was). Lots of the reviews said that the staff aboard the bus were very rude, sometimes verbally and physically abusive, and would throw luggage around regardless of whether it contained anything delicate or fragile. On the other hand, there was a smattering of reviews saying the bus wasn’t as bad as others had suggested (not that it was anything special either). Either way, we booked our seats and that was that.
In the end, the journey was fine. The driver was a bit of an arse (wanted to use a different word but Siwan disapproved) and the staff launched the bags off the bus as if they were performing the hammer throw at the Olympics, but we’d made it and that was good enough!
Day 1 - Phong Nha Cave.
Phong Nha is a beautiful place. Mountains, jungles, rivers; the scenery is impressive. On top of all that, this national park offers a range of amazing caves to explore. One of these is the famous Hang Sơn Đoòng; one of the largest caves in the world. We would have loved to have been able to visit it but it costs something like $3000... nah.
Instead, we decided to grab a boat ride through the nearby Phong Nha cave.
The boat you can take through the cave costs 360,000 VND (£12) and seats 12 people. We didn’t want to pay that amount so we waited for others to arrive and then arranged to share with them (the company doesn’t do any of this). Along with that, we had to pay £5 each for tickets to enter the cave - still, a little more economical than $3000.
The tour guide only spoke Vietnamese but it was OK as we had plenty to look at. I tried taking some pictures while inside the cave but the boat rocked about so much most of them came out blursville.
Worth a visit? Sure, I’d say so. It was a pretty cool experience for the price we paid (although you definitely want to share the cost of the boat).
At the end of the tour, a Vietnamese lady in uniform asked to have a picture with Siwan (this also happened at the beginning). I think she’s becoming a local celeb.
Day 2 - Botanic Garden, Paradise Cave and Dark Cave.
We booked a tour costing £50 each for our second day in Phong Nha.
First stop: the Botanic Garden. We missed most of this as the tour company forgot to pick us up from our hotel. This meant we had to rush through to catch up with the rest of the group, only stopping briefly to take a picture from the top of a waterfall near the end of the trail. Not a great start.
Afterwards, now with the group, we headed to the Paradise Cave (Thiên Đường Cave). This place is pretty epic, stretching on for 31km; however, only the first kilometre is open to the public. There are some incredible sights in here; it’s a shame my photos don’t do it justice.
Final stop, and main attraction of the day, was the Dark Cave. To get to the entrance of the cave, we zip-lined in and then swam around 20m.
Then, it was time to switch on our head torches as the cave is not lit with a single lamp (hence the name).
This was such an enjoyable experience. In the darkness, we waded through the shallow water deeper into the cave. I loved the eeriness of the surroundings, the echoes, the pinpoint light from our head torches ; it felt like proper cave exploration. We clambered over boulders and through tunnels until we arrived in a small chamber where we all had a mud bath (apparently very good for the skin!)
On our way back out, our guide wanted us to properly experience the darkness of the cave and so requested that everyone turn off their torches. Such a great way to end the tour.
If you’re planning on coming to Vietnam, you should definitely consider adding Phong Nha to your itinerary! :D
