Exploring Rural Phong Nha

Today may have been the best day of my trip so far. We met as a group at about 10 am and borrowed bikes from the hostel. We pedalled for about 10 km to a Farmstay in the country side. I really enjoyed the ride there, I miss riding my bike! When we got there we hung out for a bit and then we’re picked up by a dump truck! So started the first annual FNEZ dump truck pub crawl. I guess they usually do this on easy rider bikes but the roads are too washed out right now for the bikes to be able to handle it. So we all piled into the back of this truck with a couple of cases of beers and a cooler and began our day. we started it by almost hitting a power line.. But we didn’t and all was good. Once we got onto the dirt roads the ride became incredibly bump. We were being bounced around like sacks of bouncing into one another and just having a great old time. I’m not sure the pictures really show how bad the road was but we almost got stuck a few times in the ruts and mud and at one point we actually drove through a river. Thankfully the rain held off until the end of the day this time around.. I’ve actually been loving this cooler weather, I am so not a warm weather person unless there’s a body of water to jump into.

Our first stop in the country was at the Duck Stop, a little pepper farm where the lady kept a ton of ducks. She offered us peanuts to eat with the pepper she makes and oh man was it delicious! I ended up buying some pepper from her to bring home actually. On our way back to the truck she insisted that we go visit the ducks and that we pick them up and throw them into the pond. I didn’t myself but I watched the girls struggle with it haha. Fun stuff!

We loaded back into the truck and made another short trek in the mud to the “pub with cold beers” just down the road. There were lots of cold beers here and hammocks. I chilled on a hammock while others played foosball and volleyball, I needed some downtime!

Our next stop was down the dirt road even further at Moi Moi restaurant, also in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t so much a restaurant as a bunch of tables and a shack that ladies were cooking in. They served some great food though! And we bought them out of beers.. Which was our cue to get in the truck again for our final and longest and most fun stretch in the dump truck. What a time to be alive ;)

We got back to the Farmstay and watched the sun go down while eating dinner, playing games, and relaxing. We were picked up by shuttle busses instead of biking back and made it back 10 minutes before we missed our free beers at the hostel. Then it was a repeat or the last two nights.. Dancing on tables to live music, Chatting, having fun. I once again skipped the after bar in favour of sleep! Seem to be starting to wear a bit thin.Lue lisää