Hue’s appeal lies also in its magnificent surroundings. A short 4 hour train ride transports one from the center of Hue to Phong Nha. We drop off our “long distance” scooters in Hue and hop on the train for a few hours.
Why go to Phong Nha? Because Phong Nha is a small town within a national park, designated a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2003, which has a collection of stunning caves, with towering stalagmites and crystal-edged stalactites on a very grand scale. In 2009, a team found the world’s largest cave – Son Doong.
Most of the mountainous National Park is near-pristine tropical evergreen jungle and is on the border with Laos.
When we arrive, we find a small hotel on the banks of the river and look forward to exploration of our surroundings the next day when will rent daily motorbikes to get around.
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| Getting onto the train at the station in Hue. |
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| Relaxing on the train on the way to Phong Nha. |
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| Sharing a train compartment with a family ~ Ben initiates a drawing game with the girl, as none of us have any verbal language in common. |
The town of Phong Nha is “in transition”. The nearby caves have only been open to the public for viewing since 2011. As a result, the town is playing catch up with the immediate surge in travelers from all over the world, although tourism is still very much in its infancy in this region. The magnificence of local caves has created quite a buzz in Viet Nam and is attracting independant travelers to the area.
The town has a fair amount of building going on, trying to offer more beds than the few current hotels can offer. Yet this is definitely “pre development” and hopefully those who guide the town’s development will strike the right balance between development and maintenance of the natural environment.
A funny example of tourism being new to the area is our hotel’s restaurant with its very extensive menu. We’re talking “crocodile” and “ostrich” in caramel sauce, type of menu. It is late on the first night, when we arrive. We are hungry, and it is clear dinner is well over in the little town. We select a few dishes that sound quite good. After a few “sorry, we are out of that”, the truth comes out – they, so far, can only do noodles and vegetables. The rest of the menu, well, it’s more of a “fantasy menu” for the future.
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| The guys on the “prowl” for good eats in the small sleepy town of Phong Na. |
The first cave we visit is a “wet” cave, i.e. one travels by boat to get there, and the boat takes you in and through the cave. Ben strikes a conversation with a bunch of travelers, and we decide to share a boat together. It’s a floating United Nations with 8 people, 7 countries are represented: Germany, UK, US, Sweden, France, South Africa, Guatemala. Each of them is traveling solo, but together we all pay less for our boat and have a fun time experiencing the first cave together. The wet cave of Phong Nha is magnificent in its beauty, colors and system of stalactites… After a while the boat stops inside the cave at a small sandy area, like a beach and we go out the boat and on a walk through the cave out the other side where we hike up about 200 steps to another dry cave, also magnificent! Quite a workout to get there.
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| On the front of the boat, about to enter the wet cave. |
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| The front of the boat and the entrance ahead, into the wet cave. |
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| The Phong Na park has pretty spectacular scenery of limestone cliffs and rice paddies in the brightest of greens. It is a perfect place to ride a scooter! |
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| A side road jaunt has us face to face with a water buffalo. Many walk alongside the road with their owners on the way to or from the fields. |
The next day we head out by bike to “Paradise Cave” ~ the longest dry cave in the world!
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| The scenery is so gorgeous that it is actually hard to believe. A river runs through the fields, with waters of the brightest turquoise color. |
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| Turquoise river which runs through the park. |
After a ride through the most stunning scenery for about an hour, we have to climb quite a way up a winding path before we reach the small modest entrance to Paradise Cave.
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| Entrance to Paradise Cave. |
After the climb up, there is a large winding staircase to get down into the cave. It is wet and slippery due to the moisture in the cave. Once down the stairs, nothing, nothing prepares us for the galaxy inside! It is breathtakingly spellbinding, mindblowing and inspirational. The photographs do not do it justice. It is HUGE (100 meters in height), a whole other world under the ground of immense beauty quite unimaginable. We have been in caves before in different parts of the world…. none of them come close to the scale and grandeur of Paradise Cave.
The experience of Paradise Cave alone is worth coming to Viet Nam for. It is definitely a once in a life time experience in one of the most magnificent places not on, but UNDER earth!
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| Coming up the wooden staircase after the best walk EVER! |
Wow I have been to many caves in central america and this one IS actually captured in pictures, enough to awe me thru this computer screen. must have been a large cave. amazing how certain spaces can inspire us in deep ways.
Ella Ella! So good to know you are “reading us”! Largest cave in the world. Honestly, the photos do NOT come remotely close to doing it justice. One of the most inspiring places we have ever ever been! Hope you get to experience it one day!
Beautiful, Stunning, Magnificent!
Nice to know you are reading us, Boyd!
Very wonderful!, I wonder how it compares with the Kango Caves in South Africa. We also have an impressive stalactite cave here in Israel, near Jerusalem, but not on this scale.
I have been to the caves in South Africa, and to the ones near Jerusalem (as has Adam). Nice, but these caves are on a completely different scale!! The height of the formations are higher than six story buildings, and the caves are absolutely HUGE. We selected to do the 1 km hike, but in actuality, the caves go on for miles and miles. Unbelievably magnificent ~ no other cave I have ever seen even comes CLOSE!
Wow wow wow wow! I thought the surface landscape was the most beautiful you’ve shown us yet, even before you took us underground. But how did it happen that the cave wasn’t discovered for so long? Is this a very underpopulated area?
It was like being inside the most magnificent painting. Perhaps it was not discovered as the National Park has the largest number of unexploded land mines in Viet Nam. In fact, we did not swim in turquoise river, tempting as it was, as we were not at a designated site and one clearly needs to stick to those!