After Hoi An, we headed out to a national park called Phong Nha Kẻ Bàng. It houses the largest cave in the world. It can fit an entire Manhattan city block inside it, skyscrapers and all. They also restrict the number of people that visit the cave and it costs several thousand dollars to visit. So I did not go there.
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| This area of Vietnam is very skinny, so it was bombed massively to try to stop the Ho Chi Minh supply chain. People lived in the caves for protection. |
Instead we took two days to explore some of the smaller caves. One of them is the second longest cave in the world (after Mammoth Caves in Kentucky). It had a walkway with lights inside the cave and it extends for over 7km. I was only able to explore about 1km and I was still floored by the columns and rock features in the cave. The rest of the caves that we went in didn't have lights except for headlamps. It was still really cool to look around and see the cave little by little as you moved your headlamp around.
On the first day we got to spend the afternoon swimming to a cave and playing in mud. It was a room back into the cave a bit. It was full of mud that felt a lot like the clay used for pottery. It was about three feet of mud-water that was so dense you sort of floated on it without sinking in too far. If you were sitting in it, it completely supported you and you felt weightless. It was so cool! There were about five of us that thought the mud was super cool while the rest of the group seemed to be less thrilled to be covered in mud.
We swam back out of the cave and kayaked across the river. After cleaning as much of the mud off as possible, we got to sip tea and whiskey (together in the same cup of course) around a fire. That night we hung out at our hostel and chatted with the other backpackers at the hostel.
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| We take the cutest couple photos, don't you think? |
Our second day of cave exploration was a bit more adventurous. We trekked around 10k (I think) up and over some 'mountains' and then back through some caves. We got asked by the guide to wear trekking shoes, a life jacket, gloves, and a hard hat. The locals must have thought we were idiots, and I definitely felt like one.
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| SAFEST HIKE EVER |
It was nice to get in some good hiking. A lot of the rocks were pretty mud-covered. Going up and down hills I didn't really trust any of the rocks not to drop me on my butt, but it was good fun. After swimming through another cave, we ate lunch on the bank of a small lake. It was fairly simple with bread, meat ,cheese, and veggies, but the best part was that they didn't want to carry anything back with them, so they let us keep any of the leftovers that we wanted. Cheyenne and I filled our bags with Laughing Cow Cheese and crackers. Hooray free food!
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| Cave pearls are a really rare cave rock formation. |
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| NOPENOPE! Their eyes reflect light so they are easy to spot. Wanna guess how big this was? |
On the way back we were walking through the fields at sunset while all the locals were bringing their cows and buffalo back to their sheds. It was a really beautiful scene, and I was extra excited to see more water buffalo. I don't know what it is, but I think they're SO COOL. More on that later.
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| Grumpy buffalo |
That night we hopped on another night bus and were off to the capital, Hanoi. Once again, I lucked out and was on the bottom bunk in the back of the bus. On one side of me was a very nice Italian couple. On the other side of me was the wall to the bathroom (at least there was a bathroom on this bus!!) and the wall somehow heated up from the engine of the bus. I spent the night in a nice sweat, cuddling with the nice Italian girl to get away from the hot wall on the other side of me. Thankfully she understood.
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| Pretty happy they let us wear their shoes for the day. |
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