The first part of today was spent waiting outside the station because our train was delayed due to an accident. The time passed very quickly for a few of us as Donna showed us some salsa moves, I did a bit of merengue, Jayne showed us some Tai Chi and then we all tried to see how long we could stand on one leg without wobbling! 🤣 This made the wait go by in a flash!
In the end, we were delayed by about 2+ hours. We shared a cabin with Mavis and Chris. The space was fairly cramped, but we settled down quite quickly and managed to get a bit of sleep. We later found out that our next-door neighbours, who shall be nameless 🤣, were asked to quieten down so that the rest of us could sleep!!! We had been impressed with how quickly the corridor fell silent 🤣
We were woken at seven by a loud train announcement which we could not understand! Then the drinks and snack trolley started to come along and also a lady with a tray of sausages. We just stuck to a coffee to wake us up and spent the rest of the time having a lovely chat to Mavis and Chris who shared loads of great tips from their many travels.
We then had a short coach transfer to our hotel in Dong Hoi for our last day in North Vietnam before we cross the border tomorrow. We had a hearty breakfast and then had access to a couple of rooms to get ready for the day trip.
We headed off for our first cave visit and drove past a public cemetery, which was very ornate and highly decorated. This is driven by the belief in the afterlife. The tombs serve as a second home for the ancestors. This gave way to rubber plantations in an area near part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Other crops on our route included peanuts, sweetcorn, and watermelon. There were also several bomb craters still evident left from the war.
We arrived at Phong Nha, a UNESCO world heritage site known for its beautiful cave complex. We journeyed down the river in two large boats. The contrast to yesterday morning’s boat trip was really noticeable, with a lot of hustle and bustle, tourist outlets and engine noise in contrast to the tranquillity of yesterday’s boat ride. The scenery was spectacular and when we entered the caves, we saw more stunning rock formations before stopping off inside the caves and walking back through them along some boardwalks.
(Dave here) Whole video which is a bit long but hopefully captures a bit of the cave experience. Lots of photos too… which is to be expected 🙂
We then headed for our lunch stop where we had barbecued chicken, pork, sweet potato, cucumber and sticky rice, served with soy, chilli and peanut sauce in a wicker dish on a bed of banana leaves. The nearby zip wire made for some interesting background noises during our lunch!
We were behind schedule due to the train delay, so quickly headed for Son Dong – the world’s biggest cave by volume. Last entry is at 4 and we managed to hop on the buggy to take us to the start point just in the nick of time!!! Phew!!!
There were a lot of steps involved in getting to the entrance, but it was absolutely worth the effort as the caves were unbelievable. We were also incredibly lucky as there were very few people around at this time of day. On the way back, Ronny and I even had the caves totally to ourselves at one point and were able to get a 360 video with nobody in the background. We also had fun searching for shapes in the rocks (Jayne’s great idea! 😀) and managed to spot an angry camel, some purple sprouting broccoli, a rabbit and a giant ice cream with a flake!!! 🤣
After all this excitement and our late lunch, we opted to miss dinner and get our calories from beer instead! The hotel opened the bar up for us and we had a couple of drinks before an extremely welcome shower and night in a comfortable bed.