Phong Nah, Quảng Bình, Vietnam
June 18, 2014
Yet another bowl of Pho set us up for the day ahead. Two meals a day has now become standard as we always want to make sure we hit the next place by sunset. The roads here are fun enough during the day but downright suicidal in the dark. Thankfully this morning there was nothing to fix on the bike just fill her up with petrol and off we went.
The ride to Phong Nha was more of the same epic scenery along some very quiet roads. Mountain roads again near the Laos border that pushed poor little Dora to her limits but she just keeps going and going and is doing us proud for a little 125cc with two people on and some bags at the back. Several times we nearly ground to a halt without enough power but she kept on plugging away and made it up the steep climbs eventually. At times we don’t cover a massive amount of miles, maybe only a hundred a day but when you are weaving your way up steep mountain roads with a full load at a snails pace it’s hard to expect much more. Those hundred miles can take you 7-8 hours to cover.
Over those hours I came to a couple of conclusions as my thoughts wandered this day. I now have total respect for what Ewan and Charlie did on the ‘Long way round’ irrelevant of the fact they had a support team with them and good hardy powerful brand new bikes. What they did was amazing given the sheer distance they had to cover and the terrain involved. To do what they did day in day out for months on end is an achievement. I can’t compare what we are doing to their efforts in any way but I can now ever so slightly relate to how big an achievement that must have been. It’s tiring work and mentally draining doing this kind of thing but at the same time the rewards you reap balance it out at the same time.
We have only done four days and it is shattering stuff having to stay focused for every single inch you cover. I know you need to do that riding a motorbike anyway but these are not nice English roads with a lot of rules and laws to ensure as much safety as possible, these roads can be fatal with every turn you take. You turn a blind bend and don’t know if a bus is going to be coming straight at you as it’s overtaking a lorry on your side of the road. This kind of thing happens several times a day and you get used to it. You learn to ease up and pull over as far as you can as this is the way they drive here. They overtake when they need to irrelevant of where it is or how dangerous it may be and at times you nearly end up in ditches or off the side of a hill or heading straight towards a big 18 wheeler powering at you with its lights flashing and horn bellowing. It’s just how it is. You hit a good level stretch and get up to 70 or 80 only to suddenly hit a patch of road where a foot deep crater rears up in front of you. You learn to be a good sensible rider pretty damn quick or your going to be in trouble.
The second conclusion I made is that as amazing as it looked the Top Gear guys totally wimped out on their trip for whatever reason. Why they took a train while in the Northern part of the country is beyond me. It’s some of the most amazing scenery and people I have ever met as well as some of the toughest challenges I have come across. Those guys really missed out on a lot. A production crew and support vehicles etc are comforts we don’t have. If the bike dies up in the middle of the mountains we have to deal with it and get on with life. As much as I love watching that episode I have lost a lot of respect for how they did it, but I guess they needed a production crew and team, it was a programme after all.
As we eventually dropped out of the high ground again and things leveled out we hit a massive wide stretch of concrete road. I say concrete as it was tarmac all the way up until this point but then it suddenly changed for a mile into tough durable concrete and at the same time the road massively widened to four very wide lanes before returning back to normal again. I may be wrong but the only thing that went through my mind was that you could easily land or take a plane off from there and it was very close to the Laos border. I haven’t looked into it yet but given that it was pretty much in the middle of no where there was no reason to suddenly change the road into a massively wide long runway. Were they expecting this point of the road to have some serious congestion? ….for six huts and a small make shift shop in the middle of some fields? hmmm I wonder.
But before we knew it five minutes after the runway we could see Phong Nah up ahead. We turned off the Ho Chi Minh Highway and into the small town. As we cruised along the main street in search of somewhere to stay we saw a strange sight….it was other westerners. We had read a little about Phong Nha. The national park and the caves that are here but it was still a bit of a culture shock given the past few days. We pulled in for a beer and a sit down at the Easy Tiger Hostel and had a bit craic on with the owners, an Australian couple, about where to stay and what to do here. As with most places we have found it would have been more expensive to stay as two individuals in the hostel than it would be to get a double room in a guesthouse or homestay. In a way I don’t like that as I love the craic and atmosphere in hostels compared to sharing a double room but the cheapest way for us wins hands down every time, and I do love the homestays as you get to know the locals a lot more that way. The couple at the hostel also filled us in about the various caves and what to do around here so we decided that we would also stay here the next day and go out and enjoy some of the area around us as opposed to just heading straight off on the bike again and covering miles.
Nicely rested after a wee lay in bed we plumped to go to the Paradise cave here. It’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful caves that they have here and also is easily accessible. They have the largest caves in the world here but some of them you need to camp out in for at least one night as they can stretch for up to 40 kilometers so we opted for the shorter time of a day trip. I’m not a huge fan of caves. Don’t get me wrong they can be quite impressive at times but to me they are just big holes in the ground and I much prefer nature and the outdoor scenery of mountains, forests and lakes. A quick half hours ride and then another half an hour treking up a hill and we were at the cave entrance.
As we headed in and down the wooden steps and walkways they have built inside I have to say I was pleasantly impressed with the place. It is absolutely vast and quite beautiful as well. When you first enter you can’t see the bottom of the cave, just some tiny lights glowing in the distance and it has a feel of Indiana Jones about it. Wooden platforms and stairs snaking their way down past impressive stalagmites and bizarre rock formations that have been formed over millions of years. The cave dates back to prehistoric times and fossils have been found in here. That many years of erosion means the caves really are on a gigantic scale. In this particular cave you walk for about a kilometer before you are unable to go any further without specialized climbing equipment and at times the ceiling opens up impressively above you. You could easily fit several massive cathedrals in this place, or maybe even host the world cup if you fancied laying some turf and putting some seating in. It really is that big. It was enjoyable and we spent a good hour or so meandering around the place before resurfacing.
Back out into the heat of the daylight we headed back down to the car park but not before bumping into Hollie and James, the English couple who had been on our boat down the Mekong in Laos. Not for the first time on this trip did it feel like a small world and I realise that people take similar routes when traveling Asia but the fact it was over a month ago and they had since been through Cambodia was a little strange. To be at the same cave entrance on the same day at the same time in a fairly remote part of Vietnam was uncanny. A few pleasantries later and we were off on the bike again in search of a local Eco Trail to trek around.
The trail was really pretty. Small but nice all the same. A beautiful fast flowing river and some lush forest around it with bamboo walk ways zig zaging across the river. Swarms of butterflies and generally used as a day out and picnic spot for the locals by the look of it. We cooled off in the river and sat enjoying the tranquility of it all before deciding to head back to the town before it got dark.
I checked the map and it looked like you could take an alternative route through the hills to drop into the back of the town without heading back on the road we had came along to get here, so off we went. We turned off the main road and onto a much smaller track with some stunning views around. The vegetation here was so lush. The hillside carpeted with green. No space for anything with plants growing over plants in search of sunlight. The road got smaller and the descent at times was steeper than anything we had come across so far. As it snaked its way along there were also some seriously steep climbs that the bike could not handle with the two of us on. Despite the fact we did not have the weight of any bags on the bike she could not muster the power to climb with two people aboard so Dani had to hop off several times. Eventually we hit a barrier but thankfully the guard waved us through and let us continue. I didn’t even know if I was on the right road at one point and if we weren’t it would have been a long struggle to turn round and head back up the inclines we had edged our way down. Eventually though as it started to come in dark we bounced our way down a derelict road and back into town. A few beers and local rums later and we headed to bed to catch some well needed sleep. Hue tomorrow is a decent distance away so we need an early start.
