Phong Nha: The Highlight of Vietnam
Phong Nha: The Highlight of Vietnam
The kids excitedly called out “hello” to me as I rode by. The mountains rose up out of the ground as if spontaneously popping up to greet me. The rice terraces seemed like a an endless green carpet leading to an eternity of natural beauty. Farmers smiled and raised their hands to make a peace sign. Our biker gang rode by, each person in turn yelling a similar hello or flashing peace right back. I’m speaking of Phong Nha (Ke Bang) National Park near Hue in Vietnam. Is this paradise? It’s darn close.
This exists?! Really?
Phong Nha wasn’t really even on my radar until I teamed up with my Vietnam travel buddy, grill master Double D, who told me about the famous caves in the area. I had certainly heard about all kinds of caves in Vietnam, but had no idea how amazing and still unchanged these caves would turn out to be.
Apart from that, renting motorbikes and exploring the area for a couple of days in a row made this area the most beautiful, enjoyable, and amazing part of my entire month in Vietnam. Here’s why:
My awesome motorbiking crew
The Dark Cave
This cave is accessed by either kayaking or swimming to the cave mouth, and requires a guide. This ended up the most expensive part of the day, but was so much fun, we were happy to pay. The cave is darn muddy. At first, I just accepted that, yes, I was going to have some really muddy feet. Then my legs got involved as the mud got deeper. Before I knew it, I was waist deep and, while rounding a corner, huddled behind a rock as a barrage of mud balls came raining down on me.
It was time for a mud war!
Our group of five ended up practically swimming in the mud by the end of it, throwing mud at each other every now and then and finally just accepting the muddiness and fully immersing ourselves, hair and all! All of us laughing and playing like children again.
Muddy hair don’t care
When I finally washed the mud off at back at the mouth of the cave, I realized that as the mud washed off it left my skin and hair incredibly soft. People pay good money for this kind of thing in fancy spas!
If you’re a confident swimmer, bypass the kayaks and just swim to the mouth of the cave to save some money. Do this whole thing in a bathing suit, or clothing that you’re OK with getting muddy and wet.
An awesome group
Paradise Cave
The road to the national park
Paradise cave is absolutely massive. Unlike the cave visited during the typical Halong Bay tour, this one has no graffiti, has not been changed at all (the walkway is a wooden deck added in rather than a paved walkway that changes the natural flow of the cave), and the lighting is all natural colors, rather than the reds and greens I saw in the other caves.
One could spend hours in here, marveling at the shapes and seeing various things in them, subjectively, much like cloud or star-gazing.
At the entrance of the caves one can either walk or take a little open-air shuttle bus to the cave entrance. Enjoy the walk and save your money. It’s an easy stroll in the shade and not worth the extra cash to bypass.
The Pub with Cold Beer
This is known as the place where one can “buy a chicken” live, have it plucked, butchered, and then cooked for lunch. Though I didn’t personally buy a chicken (it’s a 200,000 VND price tag), I was present when a few other tourists did. I have now seen a chicken from the living stage to the plate stage. It was a little grizzly. That’s all I have to say about that. The drive out, though, was beautiful.
A beautiful sight on the way to the pub
Fair warning, the road turns into a dirt and rock road with lots of pot-holes on the way to the pub. Then ends at a river that needs to be crossed on foot (or bike, if you’re particularly adventurous and confident). No matter what you do, if you are motorbiking be sure to have travel insurance. It’s just the right thing to do.
The incredibly friendly locals in this area, and the natural beauty, made it very worth it.
The awesome side roads
Much in the way that the kids ran out of their little shacks in Kratie, Cambodia, yelling hello, the kids (and their parents too!) did the same on the small side roads here in Phong Nha. Honestly, what feels better than being welcomed every few minutes by the locals? It’s my favorite part of traveling and definitely makes a place that much more amazing for me.
The complete lack of traffic and generally good main roads made this an easy drive.
Even better, a first time rider came out with us and fell in love with motorbiking, much like I had my first time driving myself on a motorbike in Pai, Thailand. It’s tons of fun!
*All of the above can be done with a tour, but I tend to avoid tours and prefer doing things on my own. I spent about half what the tour cost was, but am comfortable driving a motorbike, which is essential on these roads, particularly those on the way to the Pub with Cold Beer.
