2.3.23
John discovered a very pleasant roof terrace at the top of our Dolphin Homestay building.
It was nice to see Dong Hoi in the daylight.
After reading up on options to get to Phong Nha caves a motorbike gives us the most freedom.
There’s a bus at 8am, but doesn’t come back until 5pm, which might be too long or too short, organised tours are plentiful but we really don’t like them.
So off we went in search of a bike, John found a place online that was only a few metres away from us.
This time we paid double the price of Tam Coc, because of the distance we needed something up to the journey.
They photocopied our passports, and gave us everything we need in the event of a puncture and a demo on how to do it.
Everything works, even the speedo.
No one has ever asked to see a driving licence before!
The first challenge was finding the petrol station. Yes John, google maps work better if you press start and turn the volume up.
74k filled the bike up and off we went.
It was 45 minutes to Phong Nha caves.
En route we stopped at the Duck Stop, 7km before the caves, something found online while researching the area.
7 years ago, their then 16 year old son had the idea to make this place into a business.
For 100k each we had Bahn Xeo, a bit like fritters, cucumber and carrot and peanut sauce is rolled in rice paper.
I hate cucumber so they kindly brought grated mango and carrot instead.
Possibly one of my favourite dishes so far.
Afterwards we were given plastic shoes to wear to go and see the ducks, all included in the 100k.
It was hilarious when John was putting the shoes on, size 43 for 45 feet, but they were right when they called him Cinderella and said one size fits all.
Next the hats
Can’t even begin to explain how much fun this was!
We laughed so much and really didn’t want to leave. Unfortunately WordPress doesn’t allow me to post videos directly, but here’s some links. (Update, they work on my sparkly new website!)
In our next lives we want water buffalos and ducks.
(Totally unrelated, but while I’m doing video links..take a look at these lovely Tam Coc ladies doing their exercises, usually around 5pm near the boat area.)
Onward to Phong Nha Caves.
Thank you google for taking us down the wrong lumpy bumpy track which is on the opposite side of the river to the cave boats.
We even contemplated not bothering and going to the Botanical Gardens nearby instead but decided we’d come this far we should do it.
It’s a complicated process. Each person pays 150k. But then the boat is an additional 550k, max 12 people.
There was a young Danish couple waiting for others to join them, who incidentally had also been down the wrong lumpy bumpy cow track on a motorbike..
I’ve been watching too much Apprentice lately and went on a hunt for more boaters and recruited a German lady and 6 people from India. One of them took control of getting the tickets. He became our tour guide.
We were so glad we went, the boat journey down the river was lovely and the cave is a huge 7km long and really spectacular. The whole trip was almost 3 hours long.
https://culturephamtravel.com/phong-nha-cave/
The worlds largest cave Son Doong is also in this general area but currently involves a 7 day trek and costs 1000s of dollars to visit.
Amazing! We had such a fab day.
Back on the bike and home safely before dark, resisting the temptation to revisit the ducks on the way.
We got our breath back and went out to find food.
We always seem to head off wherever there’s no eateries and see lots of possibles on the way back. We seemed to have walked miles.
Google translate made it no easier to choose.
In the end it was a case of definitely choose the next place we saw as I was desperate for a pee. There were a few people inside there, little did we know they were family / visitors.
There was a photo of something that looked like small saveloy sausages smothered in cheese, on a large board inside. I chose that, John opted for a burger, although it was made from seaweed and rice.
Mine took my breath away, so spicy, I battled through it. Not only was there the sausage but tubes that looked like pasta, but not hollow and a bit doughy.
I was concerned about my bottom tomorrow but battled on. John enjoyed his food.
We had to get ice cream on the way back to try and cool my duodenum and intestines.
Before going to sleep I mentioned to John that my stomach felt like it had rocks in it.
Oh dear. Not good. The same symptoms John had before he was bad…
