The flight from Hanoi to Dong Hoi took just over an hour. Even though the distance is just over 500km, it would have taken us 10-12 hours by bus or train. We were told that in Vietnam, the average speed by bus or train is about 40km per hour. The train trip would have cost almost the same as the flight, and the bus would have been much cheaper, but we just didnt feel like going on a sleeper bus, and wasting all that time.
The driver from Phong Nha Farmstay (PNF) met us at the airport, and took us the 35km to Cu Nam village. The Farmstay overlooks an ocean of rice paddies, run by a very nice Australian-Vietnamese couple, and a great base for activities in the park.
We walked around the village, and thoroughly enjoyed not being asked to buy anything; a very welcome change. A couple of children came running and showed us some crabs they had caught, and people shouted 'Hello' as we walked by. Rural Vietnam is great.
The park was designated a Unesco World Heritage site in 2003, and contains the oldest karst mountains in Asia, formed around 400 million years ago. There are 300 caves and grottos with a total length of about 70 km, of which only 20 have been surveyed by Vietnamese and British speleologists. In 2009, a team redisovered the largest cave in the world, Son Doong. It had been originally discovered in 1990 by a Vietnamese man named Ho Khanh, who stumbled on the cave , while looking in the jungle, for the rare and valuable wood of the Aloe tree. By law, the cave allows only 84 tourists a year. The price for a 6 day trip into the cave is a whopping $3,000, so totally out of our league! It is huge, it is over a kilometre from one side to the other, and can easily fit in several NFL size stadiums.
PARADISE CAVE
But the Paradise Cave was in our league! We were the only people going on the trip (luxury), and we agreed to do the 40km to and from the cave on the back of motorbikes. It was a fun experience.
It was a bit Jurassic Park (without the dinosaurs), to go on the golf cart to the cave entrance at the base of the mountain.
This cave only opened to the public in 2011, and it extends for 31.4km. It is said to be the longest dry cave in the world. The cave is really breathtaking,with its cathedral-like space full of colossal stalagmites.
And glimmering stalactites of white crystal resembling ice sickles.
When we reached the end of official part of the cave, our two guides gave us headlamps, and we went through the gate into the darkness leaving all the tourists behind. A couple of them wanted to join us, but they had not paid for this part of the trip! It was amazing walking another 3km into the cave being shown all sorts of amazing formations.
We then sat down for lunch, carried into the cave by one of the guides. The chicken, spinach, and rice were still warm. At some point, we were told to turn off our headlamps and keep walking; the darkness was claustrophobic, and we totally lost sense of direction, but what an experience. Due to heavy rain the river in the cave was too high, so we could unfortunately not do the boat ride another 3km into the cave on the river, so we headed out again.
It was the most amazing cave we have ever seen. We also realized that we had the inner portion of the cave totally to ourselves. This is very rare according to our farmstay hosts, as usually there are many tour groups, with lots of flashlights, in the inner portion of the cave. Lucky us!
