As soon as I read about Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, I booked arrangements to see the impressive caves there and planned the rest of my time in Vietnam around it.
I stayed outside the national park at Easy Tiger which is everything a hostel should be. Clean, comfortable, and consistently sold out. Excellent food and genuine friendly service. There's a pool, plenty of outdoor seating, and dozens of hammocks out back. Every morning they enlighten travellers to the various tours and activities in and around the national park. They won't push anything on you and will even advise against a few tours that are better explored on your own. They don't rent motorbikes or sell bus tickets because plenty of local shops down the street do. Staff encourage guests to explore their personal favorite restaurants and hidden spots and will sit down to map out a day of adventure with you. They train and hire locals. They want to share the wealth of tourism with everyone that was here first, by responsibly putting money in the hands of locals. They give out free maps but in return ask you to donate to MAG, a non profit cleaning up the hundreds of thousands of unexploded ordnances that plague the country, forty years after the war.
I spent one day on a bicycle cruising through the countryside. Rice paddies, buffalo crossings, no pesky salesmen, and every single kid saying "hello." One stopped me and hopped on the back for a ride. Another pulled me over where I joined his family in bumping a volleyball around for an hour.
Nothing but a few handwritten signs brought me down a washed out gravel road to a family's home-turned-restaurant where they whipped up an excellent meal of pork cooked in bamboo shoots over an open fire.
The Pub with Cold Beer served exactly that and looked out over a clean river. Some bicycle maintenance required a wrench so I found a one-man machine shop to help me out. I ended at a "farmstay" just before sunset, where water buffalo grazed and ducks made their way home for the evening.
I read that Vietnam ranks as one of the worst countries for attracting return visitors because so much here turns them off. I get that. Hawkers and tourist touts can be obnoxious and relentless; you'll probably be ripped off, scammed, and lied to; and the environment is often far from a priority. But this showed me a part of Vietnam that's so much better than that.
And that was all before stepping foot in a cave. Hang En is the world’s 3rd largest cave, succeeded only by Deer Cave in Malaysia and Hang Son Doong (also in Phong Nha). The only way to get in is with Oxalis Adventure Tours. They go to great lengths to run their tours in a sustainable manner, a refreshing change from some areas that have been overwhelmed by tourism, or where conservation takes a back seat to overdevelopment in the name of money.
Our group of 16 was led by two guides, two safety assistants, and 14 porters/cooks from the local area who grew up with the jungle in their backyard. They hauled our food, fuel, gear, and even branches of green tea on their backs for our two day adventure. We were supplied "Cambodian army boots, made in Vietnam," but they looked like camo Converse All-Stars with water drainage holes in the sides.
We started out hiking in the jungle, passing through the Ban Doong ethnic minority village. The village was started by a man and his family (8 kids) and there are now three generations totalling about 40 people. They are mostly secluded and self-sufficient, and like it that way.
There were a couple dozen river crossings, from ankle to waist deep. After accepting we would pretty much stay sopping wet, these were quite refreshing.
I knew the Hang En entrance when I saw it, but we hiked at least another 30 minutes before arriving because it's just that big.
Once inside we we were greeted with this view of the cave's lake and campsite below. The cooks were already hard at work.
We trekked another 2km though to the cave's exit, where a three second scene in Pan was filmed. It took all day and the cast and crew trekked in and out. For scale, there's a man walking down there.
Before dinner we had time for some swimming in the lake which is kept cold by the underground river that feeds it.
Dinner was quite a spread. The staff brought over dish after dish after dish....mountains of rice, morning glory, green beans, tofu, bbq pork, chicken, cabbage, chips, two soups, and dragon fruit for dessert. And to think we were feasting on that in a cave, in the middle of the jungle.
Where we sat eating dinner the ceiling towered 100m above. During rainy season the water has reached 80m. At night we felt "outside" apart from squeaking bats, until looking at the entrance where the night sky shined a brighter shade of black.
Half our group was Vietnamese with the rest Belgian, Aussie, and British. I was the only American, and falling asleep on this Fourth of July beat any fireworks show.
After a filling breakfast we packed up and headed to Cold Cave, named for the frigid water flowing inside. We donned life jackets on top of our full clothing plus helmets with headlamps, and crawled through the entrance. We dove into the bone chilling water, too mesmerized to care as we floated by the light of our headlamps. Totally different from Hang En, but just as stunning.
Back in the sunlight, we thawed with another fresh cooked meal before trekking uphill for the final leg. Over two days we covered about 25km, most of it soaking wet although the weather cooperated with no rain, bearable temps, and some cloud cover.
Just a few kilometers from Hang En was Son Doong, the world's largest cave which our guide's uncle discovered. While it currently sees just 500 visitors per year through guided tours, proposals are in for a cable car to destroy the cave and fly 1,000 tourists through it every day...
I stayed outside the national park at Easy Tiger which is everything a hostel should be. Clean, comfortable, and consistently sold out. Excellent food and genuine friendly service. There's a pool, plenty of outdoor seating, and dozens of hammocks out back. Every morning they enlighten travellers to the various tours and activities in and around the national park. They won't push anything on you and will even advise against a few tours that are better explored on your own. They don't rent motorbikes or sell bus tickets because plenty of local shops down the street do. Staff encourage guests to explore their personal favorite restaurants and hidden spots and will sit down to map out a day of adventure with you. They train and hire locals. They want to share the wealth of tourism with everyone that was here first, by responsibly putting money in the hands of locals. They give out free maps but in return ask you to donate to MAG, a non profit cleaning up the hundreds of thousands of unexploded ordnances that plague the country, forty years after the war.
I spent one day on a bicycle cruising through the countryside. Rice paddies, buffalo crossings, no pesky salesmen, and every single kid saying "hello." One stopped me and hopped on the back for a ride. Another pulled me over where I joined his family in bumping a volleyball around for an hour.
Nothing but a few handwritten signs brought me down a washed out gravel road to a family's home-turned-restaurant where they whipped up an excellent meal of pork cooked in bamboo shoots over an open fire.
I read that Vietnam ranks as one of the worst countries for attracting return visitors because so much here turns them off. I get that. Hawkers and tourist touts can be obnoxious and relentless; you'll probably be ripped off, scammed, and lied to; and the environment is often far from a priority. But this showed me a part of Vietnam that's so much better than that.
And that was all before stepping foot in a cave. Hang En is the world’s 3rd largest cave, succeeded only by Deer Cave in Malaysia and Hang Son Doong (also in Phong Nha). The only way to get in is with Oxalis Adventure Tours. They go to great lengths to run their tours in a sustainable manner, a refreshing change from some areas that have been overwhelmed by tourism, or where conservation takes a back seat to overdevelopment in the name of money.
Our group of 16 was led by two guides, two safety assistants, and 14 porters/cooks from the local area who grew up with the jungle in their backyard. They hauled our food, fuel, gear, and even branches of green tea on their backs for our two day adventure. We were supplied "Cambodian army boots, made in Vietnam," but they looked like camo Converse All-Stars with water drainage holes in the sides.
There were a couple dozen river crossings, from ankle to waist deep. After accepting we would pretty much stay sopping wet, these were quite refreshing.
I knew the Hang En entrance when I saw it, but we hiked at least another 30 minutes before arriving because it's just that big.
Once inside we we were greeted with this view of the cave's lake and campsite below. The cooks were already hard at work.
We trekked another 2km though to the cave's exit, where a three second scene in Pan was filmed. It took all day and the cast and crew trekked in and out. For scale, there's a man walking down there.
Before dinner we had time for some swimming in the lake which is kept cold by the underground river that feeds it.
Dinner was quite a spread. The staff brought over dish after dish after dish....mountains of rice, morning glory, green beans, tofu, bbq pork, chicken, cabbage, chips, two soups, and dragon fruit for dessert. And to think we were feasting on that in a cave, in the middle of the jungle.
Where we sat eating dinner the ceiling towered 100m above. During rainy season the water has reached 80m. At night we felt "outside" apart from squeaking bats, until looking at the entrance where the night sky shined a brighter shade of black.
Half our group was Vietnamese with the rest Belgian, Aussie, and British. I was the only American, and falling asleep on this Fourth of July beat any fireworks show.
After a filling breakfast we packed up and headed to Cold Cave, named for the frigid water flowing inside. We donned life jackets on top of our full clothing plus helmets with headlamps, and crawled through the entrance. We dove into the bone chilling water, too mesmerized to care as we floated by the light of our headlamps. Totally different from Hang En, but just as stunning.
Back in the sunlight, we thawed with another fresh cooked meal before trekking uphill for the final leg. Over two days we covered about 25km, most of it soaking wet although the weather cooperated with no rain, bearable temps, and some cloud cover.
Just a few kilometers from Hang En was Son Doong, the world's largest cave which our guide's uncle discovered. While it currently sees just 500 visitors per year through guided tours, proposals are in for a cable car to destroy the cave and fly 1,000 tourists through it every day...