5 March, 2017
The Riverside Hotel in Dong Hoi looks out of place. It is right by the river but stands tall and all alone. The place is immaculate and has all the ornamentation of a Greek Palace with an Oriental twist.
Dong Hoi is really only known as a gateway to the mountains west of here and the limestone caves of Phong Nha. We are here for a couple of days before we take the steep drive up to the Farmstay which is owned by Ben, an Ozzie and his wife (Bich). No! It is pronounced “Bic” as in a french Biro. She is Vietnamese and the pair are relatives of Daniel who manages our apartment in Brisbane for us.
This morning it is very foggy but a respectable 24 Deg C so we plan to take a walk to get a proper coffee and check out the town centre. On the map there appears to be a similar moated citadel but there is no mention of it in any of the travel web sites so we plan to investigate.
After a very nice Latte and Cappuccino we continue along the river edge to where the Citadel once stood. It seems that the Communists thought that it didn’t represent their ideology so the Citadel and Palace was demolished and replaced by an ugly 1960s Government building.
We walked the main shopping street for a couple of hours then headed back to the hotel to take a short break.
This afternoon we walked the 3 km up the river to the sea and along the beach road to the Beachside Backpackers Pub. This backpackers hotel is owned by friends of the Farmstay owners so we were advised to drop in for a beer. Nothing much else to do and we certainly need the exercise. It will be a chance to also check out the surf beach.
It was a very long walk….. but the beer was cold.
We agreed that a trip to Vietnam could never be about the beaches. The water is dirty, the beaches covered in litter and the rips are dangerous. We have put to rest the argument about traveling to a beach holiday. Burleigh Beach is very hard to beat.
6 March, 2017
A late breakfast and our driver arrives at the most reasonable hour of 11:00 am to take us into bush country and West Central Vietnam limestone hills. The area is peppered with bomb craters from the Vietnam War and this area has large restricted sections of unexploded ordinance.
It is only about 40 minutes to the Farmstay and on arrival it all seems a Backpackerish. Our room is clean, well equipped, quiet and comfortable. Basic? Yes, but no worse than some of the 3 star hotels that we have been in during the trip to SE Asia. After we unpacked we checked out the Farmstay and found a pool table in the bar area. 1 game each. I still beat Lynn’s fluke shots. We then headed to the bar for Happy Hour. The beer on tap is cold and very good. Dinner was excellent and probably some of the best food that we have had so far (other than La Villa in Saigon) in Vietnam. The menu is extensive and has lots of my favourites. Lynn had pancakes for dessert – expecting a crepe and getting a stack of fluffy pancakes – that were the best we have had in many years. I ate half of the stack (with my ice cream). Live music tonight was very good. I think that we will like this place a lot.
7 March, 2017.
We are out of bed fairly early this morning for breakfast as there is a presentation by Hung of what is to see and do around the local villages and the National Park. Breakfast was fantastic. They even have Vegemite!
After the presentation, Ben, the owner offered to lend us a motorcycle to ride while we are here. There are lots of free bicycles to use but the village is about 9km away so we will do a reconnoiter of the area by motorbike first before we try the bicycles – if ever!
It has been over 20 years since I last rode a motorcycle and these tiny bikes are quite unstable when two fat Ozzies (compared with the tiny Vietnamese) jump on board.
We head to the Phong Nha Village first along a narrow but good concrete road. We manage to get to a top speed of 40kph. On the way back from the village to the turn off to the “Pub with Cold Beer” we stop at a busy house where there is a wedding reception in progress.
Lynn is welcomed in with her camera to take photos of the occasion. The whole bridal party pose for her.
We then went looking for the side road to take us in to the Bong Lai Valley to check out the countryside. The first attempt got us lost in the “Banjo” back blocks so we retraced our steps and tried again. This time we were lost again but managed to find the main road and the turn off to the valley road. Unfortunately the road was in a bit of a mess so we spent the next half hour slipping and sliding through clay truck tracks. We weren’t sure if we had taken the better of the two roads to the Pub but we figured that the return journey just had to be better.
The “Nice” bar was supposed to be like a Wagon Wheel but obviously the description writer had never had a Wagon Wheel. Note that you can hire a “Tobe”. It took a while to work out that this was a Tyre Tube to ride down the river next to the Pub.
There was a Danish couple and their two young children at the Pub who had ridden there on the Farmstay Bicycles. They left the Farmstay at about the same time as us but beat us to the Pub. Tough lot these Danish.
It was a fun day on the motorbike so we plan to do another ride in a couple of days. Tomorrow we are off for a day’s adventure to the Limestone Caves. Tonight is movie night – Heaven & Earth – one of four Vietnam War movies on offer on alternate evenings to the Live Music. The other movies are: Forrest Gump, Good Morning Vietnam and The Quiet American. As we are here for 8 days we’ll get to see them all.
In the meantime it is time to do some work on the blog… or perhaps later?
8 March, 2017
Today we off at 8:00am to do a day’s adventure with “Jungle Boss” a tour operator who will be taking us and 2 other Ozzies on the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park tour to visit a couple of limestone caves, a hike to have lunch deep in the jungle and a limestone cave where we will swim 700 meters inside the cave then 700 meters out again (assuming we survive the swim in).
We were having dinner with Karen and Dale last night and we discovered that they would be joining us today on the tour. Karen and Dale are from Mount Gambier in South Australia and are on their holiday break for a 3 week tour of Vietnam. They are keen motorcyclists and did an extensive tour around the top end of Vietnam. They have also been to Halong Bay and were on the same boat that we are booked on in a few weeks.
Our guide today is Nha and she guides this tour almost every day. She is a tiny local who loves to pick up tourist slang. There is just the four of us going today as it has been a tropical downpour all morning so far. The first leg of the tour is to Paradise Cave (Thien Duong) and the bus ride to the National Park takes us about 30 minutes. We then take a limo golf buggy (spelt and pronounced buggie by the locals) to the base of the cave mountain. You can walk from the entrance if you don’t want to take the Buggie but it is a long walk and it is bucketing down. The walk up the hill is about 650m along a steep but very well-built ramped concrete path.
After a short history and explanation of what we will see we head into the cave and down a steep group of wooden stairs to the cave floor. The cave is voluminous with impressive formations and ranges from 100m in height to 150m wide. This is just a short section of the cave, part of the Hang Vom cave system, that stretches more than 30km further through the National Park but the tourist boardwalk is limited to 1.2km in this cave (therefore a 2.4km return walk).
Although we have seen limestone caves all around the world this one is still worth seeing. It definitely had some unique formations and was well presented.
The next stop on today’s tour is to a part of the Ho Chi Minh trail and to a cave where a number of Vietnamese hid during bombing raids, then emerged to rebuild the road and fill in the bomb craters. This part of the trail is very close to the border where the trail crossed over into Laos to escape the bombing raids to get soldiers and supplies past the DMZ (17th Parallel) and into South Vietnam.
In 1972 some 8 people were hiding in this cave (Hang Tam Co) when a bomb caved in the entrance, and only exit, and they subsequently died. There is now a memorial temple near the cave entrance.
As is required at any Buddhist Temple that the shoulders and knees need to be covered to enter the temple. Dale’s knees (rightfully so) needed covering. I thought for the entire day but the Buddhists are more tolerant then me… so he was given a sarong to go with his eyes.
What was more hilarious was that after donning the skirt and walking up the road to the temple (much to the amusement of locals) Dale decided not to go in because it meant having to take off his boots. All too much of an effort!
Our next section of the tour required a jungle trek and with the downpour today meant trekking through a steep, deep and slippery mud trail. Nha wore plastic sandals which seemed completely inappropriate but Lynn’s hiking boots (Dale’s and Karen’s also) were no match for the deep bog holes and slippery clay. My sneakers weren’t much better. Sandals were definitely the best option.
We passed by numerous bomb craters in the jungle before emerging onto a sandy flat by a river.
Further up the river we came across a makeshift campsite where our forward team had already set up some shelter from the rain, a change area and a very basic WC. Lunch was already on the BBQ so we unload and get under cover for lunch.
After lunch and a short “nana nap” we get changed and ready for our adventure into the Hang Tra Ang cave. This cave was opened to the public in 2016 and is unspoilt by any development (i.e. lighting). It is a half-flooded cave about 100 meters from the jungle base camp. We will cross over the river, climb through sharp limestone rocks then swim about 700 meters into the cave against a strong current and swim back. The river water temperature is about 12 deg C and the cave water is about 15 deg C. It will be a cold and long swim. We are told to get wet in the river water so that we acclimate to the cold water before we enter the cave.
Since Lynn has managed to pick up a cold from the obliging staff at our hotel in Hue she will not be joining us on this swim. She may be the lucky one….
It was a very long and cold swim. Definitely an experience that I will unlikely do again but worth the effort. We can tell that we were alive during the swim by the foggy exhalations of breath in our headlights. At the end of the cave we came across a narrow and dry extension of the cave but nobody was brave enough to try and squeeze down the “small intestine” of the cave. We all managed to find a rocky shelf above water level to sit and we turned off our headlights to experience the blackness of total darkness. We appreciated the sense of sight, made a few jokes about warm water currents and jacuzzis then back into the water for the swim out.
By the time we exited the cave the air temperature seemed very nice and warm. Back to the campsite to change back into our clothes before the trek back to the bus and a nice cold beer. We will sleep well tonight.
9 March, 2017
Lynn’s cold has worsened so it is a quiet day in today so she sleeps most of the day and I just lay around catching up on photo sorting and some email. A bit dull really but Lynn really needs to rest to shake off her cold. After Lynn managed to drag herself out of bed we played some dominoes and she beat me at pool…. again!
10 March, 2017
Lynn is still not well but, under instruction from cousin Marcia has been drinking lots of ginger tea with lemon and honey. The Phong Nha Farmstay has been a great place to rest so we are lucky that Lynn can rest up. But I can’t sit still too long so I wander around the place making a general nuisance of myself with the staff. Over in the pool, bar and garage area I notice Ben and his mum (Veronika) mucking around with a motorcycles. It seems that Veronika is planning to get her Vietnamese Motorcycle License in a couple of weeks so she is practicing the required maneuvers on a motorcycle borrowed from one of the staff members. Veronica has her own very upmarket scooter but it is an automatic and she can’t get her license on an automatic. Ben is teaching her to ride a bike similar to the test bike.
Ben is busy on the phone with all that he has on at the moment so since I had nothing interesting to do I jump in to lend a hand. Veronika soon gets the hang of the gear changes and doing very tight figure eight maneuvers but still doesn’t feel all that confident on the manual motorbike. I suggest that we go for a longer ride so that she gets more familiar with the bike so I take her bike and we head off towards the Phong Nha village.
We drop into the Bomb Crater Bar which is about half way to the village and Veronika introduces me to a few of the locals. A quick beer and we head off again towards the village. Just out the other side of the village Ben and Bich are building a new set of 8 villas right on the river front as additional accommodation so we drop into the building site and check out the progress.
On the way back we drop into Easy Tiger (a joint venture between Ben and his friend Mike) which is a bar and backpacker accommodation. Bich has the restaurant next door – Capture Vietnam – which is managed by Jo, a fun lass from Sheffield, UK. After a delicious mango muffin and coffee and some stories from Jo we head back to the Farm Stay. This has been such an enjoyable ride I plan to take Lynn for a longer ride around the area tomorrow if she is up for it.
11 March, 2017
Lynn seems to be on the mend today so we arrange to borrow another bike to explore the valley a bit more. This time we plan to go as far as we can down the river to the Phong Nha cave then come back to the main bridge and explore the road on the opposite side of the river.
The road comes to an end near the entrance to the Phong Nha Cave. Since the majority of the cave has a deep river running through it the only access is by the tourist boats that leave from the village and then go into the cave. Engines are not permitted in the cave so the owners row the craft through the extensive cave and back out again. Three quarters of the way back the tourists alight inside the cave and walk among the stalagmites and stalactites. Talk about a close-up experience.
We are on the other side of the river today so a visit to the cave will have to wait until tomorrow. The last kilometer or so of this track is part of the Ho Chi Minh trail. Troops and ammunition were moved along the trail at night during the Vietnam war. It turns out that the Phong Nha cave was used to hide a portable bridge and trucks during the day and at night they would assemble the bridge to cross the river.
Next we head back along the track into the village and out the other side to the bridge that crosses the river, part of the Ho Chi Minh Highway East that leads to Hanoi. We keep heading away from town but on the other side of the river through tiny villages. This is a very rural area and it is obvious that the people are poor. This area is also mainly catholic vs the majority of Buddhist areas.
Then we come across this amazing church of cathedral proportions and ornamentation. Who could have built such an amazing structure? Why build it in this remote area? Who paid for this when the locals are so poor?
Back across the bridge.
This area is very close to the 17th Parallel that separated North & South Vietnam. There is a large quantity of unexploded ordinance (UXO) in the area so we are warned not to venture off marked trails. So the “Ke Bang” could be literal.
Seriously though, this guy lost the top of his finger while working in his field when a cluster bomb exploded. He was luckier than most.
By the time we return to the Farmstay, Veronica has returned from her trial run at the License Testing Centre. She is in need of a shot of coffee so we follow her to a nearby cafe that is owned by a retired North Vietnamese General. He speaks no English so it is great fun trying to communicate with him. He amazes us with his ability to use the translator app on Lynn’s Asus tablet. The General is 76 but very fit and with it.
12 March, 2017
This morning we are up early to take the National Park bus into the village where we join guests from the Easy Tiger hostel to listen to an interesting presentation about the general area. We then separate into smaller groups so that we can share the cost of a Dragon Boat to the Phong Nha cave.
It is about a 20 minute boat ride along this blue/green river to the marshaling point before we enter the cave. The boats cannot use their engines once they enter the cave so the fore and aft deck hands have to row the boat through the cave.
I took heaps of pictures inside the cave but unless you are there the size and context of the formations have no reference point so I haven’t published too many so that you won’t get too bored.
About three quarters of the way back out of the cave we are all offloaded so that we can walk the last section up close and personal to the limestone formations. The Dragon Boats go in with lots of passengers but none come out…..
We managed to lose a Canadian couple from our Dragon Boat in the cave so we were 20 minutes late heading back to the village. There is no hurry so I managed to take a few “country life” photos on the way back.
The river is quite wide in places but dotted with rock shoal hazards and sand bars.
Each of the Dragon Boats is owned by a family and your boat is chosen by the director who allocates the next boat available to your party of up to 12 tourists. It is a good way for the local families to supplement their income.
We arrived back at the village at about 1:00pm. Now to get back to the Farmstay 9km away. The options are: 1. wait until 5:30pm for the Park shuttle bus (and drink lots of beer at Easy Tiger). 2. Take the local bus (but the driver doesn’t speak English). 3. Take a Taxi (no fuss and only about A$12). 4. Take an “Easy Rider” motorcycle taxi (about A$8 for 2 bikes). 5. Take a push bike and ride the 9km. What, me exercise?
The Easy Rider motorcycle taxi service has been set up so that young locals can earn a living. Our drivers arrived with extra helmets and we set off. They also offer local guide services and will make stops along the way so that you can take photos.
We stopped just out of town on the highway to take photos of a few bomb craters.
It was all good fun and we arrived home safe and well.
13 March, 2017
Each morning at breakfast and each evening at dinner we are looked after by Quynh (The Mighty Quynh). Quynh has to be the happiest guy on the planet. He never stops smiling and is always lots of fun. He works from very early in the morning then goes home from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm where he works the family farm (produces pepper, corn, ginger, mangoes and turmeric). He also has a small tourist business at the farm where we has a live duck show. Quynh taught himself English by listening and talking to guests and has been supported by Ben & Bich.
We follow Quynh home at 10:00 am and he introduces us to his mother and we get a tour of the farm and a lesson on how to grow pepper.
Tribute song to our mighty Quynh.
Next, on to the ducks. Even as we start to the duck pen the ducks are gathering in expectation.
Now for the best part. The higher we can throw the ducks the better our luck in life will be. Note: No animals were hurt in making this movie…. Not sure about the tourists.
A great day out. Now it is getting quite hot so we head back to the ranch and I hit the pool to cool off before updating the blog. At our last dinner at the Farmstay we catch up with Bich and Veronika. Huong has concocted a new cocktail that she calls “Blue Hawaii” and we get to sample it. Lucky that I am not driving tonight.
We are going to miss this place very much when we go tomorrow. We promise that we will return as soon as we can.
14 March, 2017
We need to start packing this morning but it is hard to get moving as we know that we will miss the Farmstay and all the lovely staff. Guillaume is back from his week off this morning so we finally get a chance to have a chat. Thuy is also in this morning and I take the chance to get the last of my photos before we settle the bill.
At 11:00 am we take the bus back to Dong Hoi and the Riverside hotel ready for an early start tomorrow morning when we take the train to Ninh Binh.
Late News…… we just heard that Veronika was successful in her first attempt at getting a Vietnamese Motorcycle license. Well done, Veronika.
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