Ngọc Hà

After a couple of hours delay leaving Honkers, we have arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam. Trav's old work colleague arranges a car to pick us up and take us downtown for some local beers and a pleasant meal at a fancy but crazy cheap restuarant. It's over in a flash and we hop onto our first train on our trip bound for Dong Hoi.

We're booked onto a 6-bed hard sleeper cabin which turns outs to be very comfy. We leave at 10pm on the 10 hour overnight journey. We're lucky that we had a quiet cabin with locals who were also interested in getting some sleep - most of the other cabins are packed with locals eating food and speaking the local toungue at the top of their lungs.

We arrive in Dong Hoi and are picked up by the travel company Oxalis whom we've booked the cave tour with. They drive us to Phong Na and we check into our hotel and have the rest of the day to explore.

After a quick bite we jump aboard a dragon boat for a short tour that takes us to the Phong Na cave. There's enough time left over for a quick nap before we catch a bus to the Oxalis HQ for a safety briefing and a meet n greet with the guides and other tourists.

We're packed n ready to go for adventure!Read more