A debacle of a bus ride to get here, the land of massive caves.
Cao Bang, where we were coming form, isn’t exactly on the tourist trail. It’s also not populated either. So the only bus is to Hanoi, and it arrives at 4:30 am. We arranged a early morning transfer to a different but that would take us the rest of the journey to Phong Nha.
The first half of the journey was uneventful. But once we were in Hanoi, we hung out at some random office for an hour waiting for someone to direct us to our bus. Nobody spoke English, and our contact wasn’t in town. Credit to Vietnamese communication though, when the time cave, someone waved us down and sent us on a bus and on our way.
The rest of the bus was fine. We were on a VIP for the first time, which means we have our own 6ft by 3ft by foot padded cubicles for the journey. A lot more space and relaxation, especially for the long many stop ride. Overall, from hostel to hostel we were in 7 different vehicles, and it took 21 hours.
Phong Nha is a tourist town. The attraction is Phong Nha National Park, a cacophony of jungle and massive cave nearby. There are a couple available for easy public tourism, but that would wait for the next day.
We had a family dinner with some other people at the hostel, and then Linh, our hostel host gave us a short basic Vietnamese lesson. Turns out, instead of thanking people, we had been accidentally telling them to shut up the entire time. Uptick, not downtick. The nuances of tonal languages.
Linh then sat us down to figure out what we wanted to do in the area. Like all homestays, the hosts have a plethora of local information that just isn’t that easily attainable online. And one thing stood out to us (me). A two night, three day jungle caving adventure. Not the pedal bike to the cave nonsense. No, we were going deep into the woods to some of the worlds largest caves.
So we signed up, and gave ourselves a day to mentally prepare. We spent the one full day in town, eating some good food, but mostly catching up on blogging and planning for the future.
Then the next morning came, we got into the van, and headed out on the coolest (and spookiest) adventure we have had yet. See you there!
A Vietnamese lesson …. good job! I bet the food is delicious too!!
The VIP bus is worth your while, a little extra $ goes a long way. Jungles & caves, sounds like a Raiders of the Lost Ark movie set, spooky sounds fun. Keep it interesting, trek on.
Lost is a bus station without knowing the language is a quintessential part of the travel experience. Can be hard to trust it will work out and not look stressed. Good for you.