Foreword from the editor: It is with great pleasure that I announce a new Ambient Travel Video! This Vietnam vid encompasses footage from these last three blog posts: Cat Ba Island, Trang An and Phong Nha. The music is a harp cover of Radiohead’s Daydreaming because I get to choose things I like and you can’t stop me. The atmospheric audio recording is from our Trang An boat tour. Enjoy!

Back to Billie!

Day 80 cont… travel to Phong Nha

Well, it wouldn’t be fair if we didn’t give mum the true travel experience of at least one hellish night bus, would it? We actually had high hopes for this one, setting off at 7pm it promised to get in at 1am which would still give us a solid night’s sleep at our accommodation. We had a delicious early dinner, mum even had a ‘sleepy tea’ which was very ambitious, and then we headed down the road where the bus was supposed to pick us up. When it didn’t arrive at 7pm, Rowan messaged the bus company who said the bus was now delayed an hour and the pick-up location had also changed but not to worry the bus would still arrive on time at the destination. Still hopeful we lugged our bags down the street to the bus station and located our night bus. This is where the tides started to change. We asked the driver when we were setting off and he just gestured for us to get on and stop asking questions, so we obeyed and got into our bus pods which were slightly too short for us tall Brits.

It was another hour before we finally set off with all hopes of a good arrival time dashed. We were thrown around our pods for six hours before finally being cast out at 3am not at our destination but instead to a taxi who would take us the last 45 minutes. We were all pretty deflated at this point and in need of our beds. When we finally arrived at our homestay, we were greeted by our lovely host along with 2x dogs, 3x puppies, 1x pig and 2x ducks. It was the best welcome ever and as she showed us our room, they all tried to run in after us. At 4am we finally crashed, agreeing a lie in would be in order.

Day 81 – Phong Nha relaxation

Unfortunately for us a lie in was not to be, we were awoken at 7am to the sound of chainsaws. They were felling the trees around the property to be made into paper, something they do for a few weeks every five years, unluckily for us. Very tired and not feeling our best, we gave in and got up to go for breakfast to be re-greeted by last night’s welcome party.

A cuddle with a puppy and a pig does wonders for sleep deprivation and we cheered up massively. We learnt all their names (including Caramel, Coco, Carrot, Peanut… can you see the theme here?) as well meeting the two cats (inc Picatso) and goats who hadn’t been around to welcome us last night. We had a relaxing day, swimming at the pool, going on a guided walk with the host’s nine year old daughter and, of course, playing with all the animals. Good food, an evening yoga class and some Saigon beers in the evening had us right as rain by the end of the day!

Day 82 – Phong Nha: Botanical Gardens and Paradise Cave

After a pho for breakfast, we set off for today’s adventure on scooters.

First stop was the ‘Botanical Gardens’. Not what we would consider a botanical garden in England but instead a jungle with waterfalls and footpaths. We (mum) opted for the longer trek and we set off on the steep climb, stopping regularly to look out for birds and watch a giant squirrel swing about in the branches above.

The forest was beautiful and lush and full of life even if it was very hard to spot. We hadn’t brought our swimsuits but that didn’t stop mum who stripped down to her undies and jumped into the waterfall pool for a much needed cool off, making me and Ro very jealous but not quite enough to go around with wet undies for the rest of the day!

Next stop was Paradise Cave, one of the largest caves in Vietnam at 31km (!) long, of which visitors can walk through the first 1km on boardwalks. We arrived at 1pm just as the group tours were heading off for lunch so had much of it to ourselves which was amazing. It was completely unworldly, it felt like we were visiting another planet. I don’t really have the descriptive words to do it justice so here are some cool pics!

Phong Nha actually houses the largest cave in the world! And a few of the next biggest after that. They can only be visited on expensive and extensive excursions, so we kept it easy peasy. We returned back to the ranch for animal cuddles and read our books by the pool, what a treat!

Day 83 – Phong Nha Cave

Back on bikes, but this time push bikes, we cycled through the beautiful green paddy fields, high fiving groups of school kids biking to school.

More caves, lucky Lucy! She thought she was getting some beach time but instead we’ve forced her to visit cave after cave, how is she supposed to get a sun tan?! Today we are visiting the Phong Nha caves which involves a 30 minute boat down the river to reach them.

First up is the dry cave which starts with a very sweaty hike up a cliffside to reach the cave entrance, as well as a great view.

Again, we had timed it to perfection (lunchtime) so had the place to ourselves to explore.

Next up was the wet Phong Nha Cave back on the boat and rowed through by the strong boat attendant woman, the cave was beautifully lit with little beaches and sand dunes coming off from the river. We have definitely become ‘cave people’, they are so unique and not like anything we have seen along our trip so far, and Vietnam has some of the best the world has to offer. It also helps they’re nice and cool when the weather is sweltering!

Extremely hungry after delaying our lunch, we cycled along the river to a vegan café where we ordered a feast along with some ice coffees and watched the boats full of afternoon cave visitors whizz past us.

We had such a great few days in Phong Nha, largely down to our amazing accommodation and its abundance of cute animals. None of us wanted to leave, especially as it involved getting on another bus. Mum had to be stopped from putting Caramel the puppy in her rucksack and taking off with her.