Phong Nha

After days on bikes we took advantage of a rest stop in Phong Nha Ke-Bang, a lush green national park at the narrowest section of Vietnam. It was a key staging post in the war, using the world’s largest caves as storage and training facilities for the north Vietnamese liberation army. The proximity with Laos allowed materials and troops to skirt the DMZ before re-entering Vietnam in the south, on the Ho Chi Minh trail roads we drove up on.

These days, tourists and backpackers come to visit the mind-bogglingly huge caves and hike in the national park. Chelsea visited the area in 2017, and insisted we stay at the Phong Nha Farmstay. It is even more lush now, with a pool long enough for laps, and views of water buffalo wallowing in the muddy fields. Idyllic! While it’s a bit out of town, this meant we could get to the main attractions (for us), on bicycles.

The Duck Stop has a big TikTok following, which made us wary, but it is actually better than one might imagine—Dan has never looked so happy. We took turns being the ‘duck leader’, fed them from our hands, feet and laps (confusing, but doable). After a (vegetarian, duck-free) snack, we cycled onward to the famous Pub with Cold Beer. They’ve put in concrete roads since Chelsea was last here and getting to the pub involved significantly less mud. They also have a pool and a lot more hammocks, so we stayed for hours and spent a grand total of £5.75. In the evenings, we’ve been watching war movies and laughing at how unlike Vietnam the filming locations are (Apocalypse Now was shot in the Philippines), while once again marvelling at Vietnamese resilience.

On our cycle through the paddies, we paused to pick up some Pop Mie for dinner, and had beers forced on us by some fairly fruity locals. They only had about four words of English between six of them, so we never really found out anything about them except that they wanted us to have some beers. One gent opened his can by tearing the entire top off with one of his three remaining teeth, achieving with dental insouciance what we could only manage with a can opener. Another edentulous man spent the entire 45mins gazing rapturously at Chelsea and asking ‘Children?’ Not with you, sir. We kept trying to leave, and only after a third refusal of additional beers and accepting a handful of plums were we permitted to cycle on.

Our last day in Phong Nha the weather cooled slightly, so we explored the caves with a young French couple. Phong Nga cave is absolutely enormous, and could shelter a whole army and all their material, but the Americans failed to successfully bomb it because of the surrounding mountains and its extremely low receded entrance. From there we hiked up 500 steps to the Tien Son cave, which we had to ourselves. The silence in the depth of the cave is heavy and the swirling stone structures reminded us of interstellar storm clouds. The stalactites resembled jellyfish and billowing curtains.

We have a travel day next, heading further north for some much needed time with old friends!En savoir plus