Caves, Phong Nha

I woke up early to try calling TD again and had some success after waiting on hold for almost 45 minutes. But I got my issue sorted! They changed my visa into a debit card so I can access my chequing account from it and can take out cash thankfully. What an ordeal. But it worked! So no complaints.

After doing that and eating some breakfast I met the group and we hopped into vans to do some awesome cave exploring!! Which is what this area is famous for. King Kong was filmed in the National Park here where we started our visit.

Our first stop was at 8 lady cave and a temple. The temple was dedicated to those 8 ladies and also the folk who risked their lives building and maintaining the highway in the area. There were 8 ladies who lived in the cave and at night would go out and perform road maintenance during the war. There were also 8 people who died in that cave when a bomb closed off the entrance.. They died of starvation because they were unable to clear the opening. Later on their bodies were recovered.. 4 young boys and 4 young girls. Very sad story. The highway, highway 20, was named that way because the majority of the people building it were under 20 years old. Incredible stories. We also learned that the world's largest cave is in this area and costs about 3000 USD to enter on a 5 day trip. It's so expensive because they want to keep it preserved in it's natural state, makes sense I guess! Another fun fact about the Temples here is that the middle doors are reserved only for very important people to enter, such as the king, but because Vietnam no longer has a king the doors in all the Temples are now closed. I should also mention that most people in Vietnam don't follow any religion but use the Temples for making offerings to their deceased loved ones.

From there we moved onto Paradise Cave with was pretty cool! We descended a whole bunch of stairs into the cave and followed a boardwalk but a km into the cave. It was the biggest cave I've ever been in! And it kept on going but the boardwalk ended. Definitely worth the visit and the steps. The cave photos in this post are the ones from that cave. Just rocks everywhere, a high ceiling, and a broad array of different rock types. It was the coolest cave I've been in I think.

After the Paradise cave we at lunch at a nearby spot, family style again before heading over to the Dark Cave! The Dark Cave was the best part for sure, and I wish I could have taken photos. They showed us a video beforehand of everything we'd be doing in it and we were all quite disappointed thinking that all the surprises were ruined.. But it turned out to be fun anyway! We started out by ziplining to the cave entrance. That was fun wearing only our bathing suits... But we made it over and then swam about 20 Ft to the cave entrance. We were given helmets and headlamps and they were definitely needed. Walking through narrow passages with low hanging stalagmites with the floor covered in mud about 3 inches deep. We wandered around exploring for a while, slipping and sliding in the mud before coming to the highlight of the cave! A giant mud bath. I can't even describe how cool that was! It was big enough to hold all of us, about 30 people and not be too crowded. The mud was about 3 or 4 feet deep and was refreshing, my skin was super soft afterwards. Best part? Realizing that you can float in it with zero effort. Literally pick your feet up and just float on a seated position indefinitely. So cool! And watching a few people slip and get covered from head to toe in mud. Of course a few people did it intentionally, but I didn't feel like eating mud. We also shut all of our lights off for a few moments and sat it complete darkness. Pretty sweet. On the way out of this cave we slid down a mud slide and then tried to wash off in a pool of clear water. Didn't work all that well, because later when I was washing the swim suit I wore in there it took me a full 30 min to get all the dirt out.. Upon exiting the cave we took kayaks back to the main building. There were a bunch of water toys set up there and we took turns taking one of those things you hang off of and drop into the water. It was really cold at this point and almost raining but we were already wet so figured why not? Too bad they insisted that we wear life jackets.. Kind of ruins it a bit but what can ya do.

Once we had all finished playing and having fun we hopped back on the bus and went back to the hostel. There we repeated the night before.. Dinner, drinks, pool, foosball, live music, fun! I opted out early though and went to bed at about 10pm I just couldn't handle it, need sleep!!Read more