Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park

After a travel day and sick day, we headed out today in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park. The park is one of the top sites in Vietnam, although just being open to mass tourism in the last 10 years. It is particularly known for its caves.

We arrived yesterday afternoon and took an easy bike ride around town, and checked out the edge of a cave. We also found a nice spot on the river and read.

We also booked a tour to go see three caves. In the middle of last night, it started to pour rain. While this helped us sleep, I did recall rolling over and thinking this tour is going to be tough.

Our first stop was Paradise Cave. This cave was first explored in 2005, and is the symbolic cave of the region. It was very touristy. It had a walkway through it, along with lights. The stalagtites and staliagmites were quite impressive, with a mix of green, red, black and their combinations.

Our next stop was the three ladies cave. It was our first tourist related thing to the war. In 1972, an American bomb fell nearby the cave and 8 people were trapped in. Well it was technically male and female, they named it the 8 ladies cave. They built a temple there to honor them in the 90s. The cave itself was very small, and we didn’t go in it. At this point, the raining is really coming down. It was a steady downpour of rain.

At this point, we were not really digging the tour. It was just meh. The sites weren’t that good, and the weather was crap.

We then went to our third cave. I don’t have the name nearby. We had to trek through the jungle, in the rain and through the mud. It did remind me the difficulty I read about in preparation for the trip. All of the Vietnam war books I read discussed how challenging it was to move through the jungle in the rain with the mud. We were following a path, and weren’t lugging guns and what not. Still, it was a tough slog. We headed about 2 miles in, where we had a much needed lunch.

We then geared up to go into this cave. You can see the entrance in the picture above. But the cave is actually filled with water, so we had to swim. They put us in life vests and helmets. After bouldering over some rocks, we dove into the cave. Ok, we didn’t actually dive. We more winced at the cold water.

We then swam in the cave for about 300M, and climbed up on a shelf with our tour group. We then proceeded to turn out all the lights and howl in the darkness, to listen to the echoes. We then swam out. The hike out was a tad easier, as it wasn’t raining.

This final cave made the tour worthwhile. The cave was humbling, the massiveness of it. The amount of time it took to make, and the raw beauty.

Tomorrow, we are going to rent another scooter (weather permitting), visit a few sites on our own. We will try not to wreck the scooter tomorrow!