Caving in Phong Nha

…coming out of the thick bamboo forest we approached another river crossing. Carefully balancing my camera bag on top of my orange cave helmet I waded in to cross the rapids – the icy cold water rising up to my chest. A junior tour guide stood watching the group, in place to ensure no one was swept away by the rapids. Suddenly he lost his footing and fell into the rapids’ powerful grip – seeing the fear in his eyes I reached and caught him with one hand then swung back to catch my camera bag just before the DSLR met its fate. With the guide safe I continued to the other side to drop my bag onto the river bank before rushing back to help the others cross. I reached and grabbed Jen’s hand just as she was also being caught by the rapids and dragged to the other side. My Cambodian army boots soaked and sweat pouring from my forehead we continued onward on our trek. Sh.t this was fun!

Massively overly dramatised introduction over (I need to keep myself entertained or it will be a long year of blogging), we had an amazing adventure in Phong Nha, a few hours north of Hue. We arrived at the nearest train station, Dong Hoi, then continued on about 45 minutes to the newly developing yet still small rural town of Phong Nha, the gateway to hundreds of cave systems including both the largest and third largest caves in the world. There are a few hostels, guesthouses, basic restaurants and a mini mart (stocking the essentials: water, oreos and packet noodles) but you only need to walk (or in our case, cycle) a few moments to see the real rural lifestyle here that remains mostly unimpaired by the new tourist boom.

On our first day we warmed up by riding bikes to town, hiring a private long boat (you can share with up town 14 people but it was inexpensive and we didn’t want to wait or stick with a group) and headed to the very accessible Phong Nha Cave located about a 30 minute boat ride from town. On arrival at the cave one of the two boat crew (in our case and all other boats I saw, the wife) rowed the boat 1.5km into the dark inner of the cave (the total cave length is about 45km but that would take some serous rowing!). The three hour round trip was a great way to test out our cave photography skills (it turns out they are very poor) and build out excitement for the trek we had booked to Hang En.

Hang En is the world’s third largest cave measuring at a massive 140m high and 200m wide! We booked a 2 day (1 night) trek with Oxalis, the largest and most reputable tour operator in town and the only one authorised to take tours to Hang En. The tour started with a safety demonstration and an opportunity to borrow hiking shoes (Cambodian Army boots) and purchase any other hiking clothes needed. We then drove one hour to the Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park to start our hike.

Day one of the hike started with a couple of hours downhill trekking (for those of you thinking ahead, yes this means the return leg finished with a tough uphill hike). It had been mostly dry in the couple of days before our hike but it was still fairly muddy – apparently the hike is very slow going in the wet season. The overall hike (about 12.5km each day) took us through some stunning landscape but there was not a huge amount of time to stop for photos as the tour was designed to be quite testing and fast paced. Along the way we had 30 or so river crossings, some only ankle height but others around 1.2m which required us to put electronics in dry bags (and hold the rest above our heads). Arriving at Hang En around 3:30pm we paused to look down at our campsite for the night – set up in the cave by the porter team who carry everything in each day and (obviously very fit) charge ahead of the tour group to ensure everything is set up for our arrival.

Once inside Hang En we explored within the cave (helmets, gloves and head-torches on) admiring the sheer magnitude of its size, the beauty of the natural colours, the formations and the floor to ceiling stalagmites and stalactites that had built up over millions of years. We then climbed to see the magnificent cave opening which has been featured in the National Geographic.

We had a quick swim in the cave lagoon (this was right next to the campsite, I guess we can consider this to be an ensuite- water was cold but good as a shower replacement and we had certainly built up plenty of mud and sweat) then had an amazing dinner spread – especially considering everything was carried in and cooked on the makeshift kitchen in the cave. Dinner was washed down with a few shots of (40%) rice wine which helped us get a pretty good night’s sleep in the cave!

Day two started with a hike to a second, smaller, cave known locally as the Cold Cave. The only way to enter the cave is to swim in (with mandatory life jackets so it’s more like floating than swimming). This was another awesome experience which I planned to upload a video of but turns out the Gopro didn’t catch much in the pitch black cave- fair enough.

To dry off we hiked the 12.5km back, across the 30 or so rivers (including the dramatic scenes with the rapids which did happen but of course really weren’t so dramatic) and up the gruelling hills for the last couple of hours. These were made even harder as Jen and I were wearing our North Face raincoats to provide protection for our arms (I forgot to mention in the dramatic story at the start the fields of poison ivy we had to be careful to avoid throughout the trek – these were quite prolific in some parts and definitely to be avoided!). We were happy to reach the top (Jen even happier as she beat me up by quite a bit) -drenched in sweat but refreshed by icy cold beers that were waiting by the bus!

In Phong Nha we stayed the first two nights at the awesome Phong Nha Mountain House – a small homestay just outside of town consisting of three newly built farmhouse bungalows.  The hostess, Ms Ai is an amazing cook and prepares breakfast and dinner which were served on our balcony. Awesome! Due to limited availability we stayed the third night in town at a hotel that was cheap, central, clean but a bit smelly. To get back to town Ms Ai grabbed her motorbike and the neighbours bike and somehow managed to get us and our massive rucksacks on board.

Whilst not our best accommodation so far, our second hotel was central to some good eats – the standout in town for me was the massive portions (good for carb loading the night before the hike) at the Easy Tiger Hostel where we had chicken fajitas, pesto pasta and some cold froffy beers.

After the cave we had time for a quick shower and dinner are Oxalis headquarters before grabbing a night train to Hanoi….. more on this soon.