Dong Hoi Homestay

We arrived in Dong Hoi on the 13th feb, a couple of days ahead of the cave expedition Chris wanted to do in a nearby town. Seeing as it was going to be Valentine's Day we opted for this homestay on the beach.
We organised it online and turnt out to be one of the best decisions we had made so far.

We arrived to this wonderful house at around 7am and although it was a lot earlier then the 2pm check in time the ladies there were all rushing to help us. They made us breakfast, showed us to our incredible room, gave us bicycles and a map of the town and away we went.

We cycled around the whole day, taking in the miles upon miles of beach, with no body but us there to enjoy it. We appeared to be one of very few westerners in the town and later found out that up until 5 years ago, there wasn't even a single hotel there.

We spent some time trying to find the bus station so we could get to the next village the following day. The village high in the mountains and was only assessable by local bus, and again had only in recent years had western visitors due to the largest cave in the world only being discovered here in 2009 and just being open for expeditions since 2012.
Chris was off on his quest to find the bus office building which according to his maps we were outside- except it looked like a butchers or something. So as he's walking in and out of doors with people looking at him like he was from Mars I sat on a step with the bicycles. Whilst I was there this little girl around 3 years old appeared out of her garage, she was the cutest thing in the world and kept disappearing inside to get fruit and feeding me it. Every time I pulled a face she copied me and after about 5 mins she was crawled up and sitting on my knee. A man who I can only assume must have been her dad kept coming out and telling her off, to which she would get up and go in. But then minutes later come running out laughing and jumping on me again. In the end I felt bad as the father was really cross - probably saying 'get away from that alien' so I handed her back to her family who defiantly didn't like me and waited around the corner so she couldn't see.

After Chris excepted that the bus office didn't exist we went to the local market and just watched the fisherman bring in the fish and the woman sitting on the floor selling them. Don't get much more fresh then that. Whilst we were there a woman ordered some frogs. They were still alive and jumping around this bowl so the market lady began her work. First she chopped off the feet and hands. I say chopped off but she just used scissors to cut them off, then the head- again with scissors, she then made a slice by the neck and skinned the entire frog in one peeling the skin off quicker then I can a banana she then put it in another bowl. She continued this at an incredible pace. Infact I think within 5 minutes there were 30 or more frogs ready to go... With one problem, they were still hopping around. I actually couldn't believe it. Frogs with no heads, hands, feet or skin still trying to escape. She scooped them all into a carrier bag and then handed them to her customer and she walked off with the plastic bag still moving! Imagine going to local butchers in London and then still giving you the animal still moving around in a carrier bag. Different worlds.
Everyone at the market was so friendly we were given food for free to try- which was delicious, and 100% not dog as we were to far south and it's only the North of Vietnam where dog is a dish. I was even getting selfies with an old lady at one point. There just all so happy.

The next morning (valentines) I got up at 6am as Chris gets up around 7am and went outside to make his card. I had my felt tips, glue and scissors I've been using for my scrap book and a map of the town and toilet paper as my tools. It took some work and it was a messy job but in just under an hour the card was complete. Vincent Van Gogh eat your heart out. Before I could sneak back into bed Chris came out and started laughing. He was like god sake woman I was planning on doing the same thing... WHY ARE YOU AWAKE? Lol. So I gave him his card and crawled back to bed still with tissue stuck all over myself and red pen on my face.

When I woke up I had a red rose and a card waiting for me, I couldn't believe it. Obviously Chris had had some help from the women at the homestay, but it's really the small things that please me. He had even coloured inside the lines in the card, such a clever boy. I got up and went to have a shower and there was rose petals all over the bathroom. I have never been so surprised in my life. Well done Christopher. He then walked me outside on the terrace and I looked down and there was a heart made out of candles in the garden. He's a keeper.

After getting ready we went down for breakfast and all the girls come running up to me cuddling me and saying happy Valentine's Day. It was so lovely I felt overwhelmed abit actually. I felt so emotional leaving them as we set out for the next town and only wish we could have stayed longer.

So we waited at a bus stop outside the homestay for 2 hours, I would say about 50 people drove past us in that time, all locals, all staring. None stopped. Well one did in the end, to let us know that the buses didn't run that far out of the main town out of summer season. Cheers everyone else. Lol. So we got a taxi to the Center next to the market then waited for a further 40 minutes, hallelujah a bus arrived. Never been so happy in our entire lives to see a local bus.
So after almost 2 hours an entire class of school kids, and the same song on repeat for the duration we made it to Phong Nha.

Hang en cave, the 3rd largest cave in the world.

Chris had researched expeditions in the months leading up to our trip and had actually wanted to do Son Doong cave which is the most recent cave to be discovered, and once explored was actually found to be the largest cave in the world. Situated only 3km from Hang en cave which for years before was ranked number 2 of caves in the world, in fact you actually have to go through the cave we stayed in to get to the largest one. I think it's crazy that the largest cave ever to be discovered was so close to the second largest undiscovered for millions of years and just makes me think about all the other wonders around the world that are yet to be found.
DINOSAURS MAY EXSIST! haha.
There is only one company that does expeditions through both of these caves. The largest cave as much as Chris wanted to do it, was £2000 per person and would take 6 days to get through. It is also booked up until 2016. The cave is so large it has its own weather system within it and jungles and waterfalls. Only 6 people at a time are allowed to do the largest cave and you have a team of 25 porters following you the entire expedition, with food, tents, first aid Ect. They also send an expert from the UK on every expedition as there are parts you have to abseil to actually get into the cave.
So with no abseiling experience, not much fitness level and about 6 more countries to visit before Australia, it was out of the question for for us to do that one.

When we arrived in the local town it was like a time machine had taken us back 50 years. The children stared at us and you wouldn't dare go out in anything less then trousers and a shirt through fear of offending people.
Infact before the caves had been open for expeditions there hadn't been a single westerner there ever. Imagine people aged 60 only ever seeing us on the TV and suddenly we are strolling around there markets. It was surreal.

There was a whole list of stuff we required to do the one night, two day expedition of Hang En cave, and considering I genuinely thought I was going to be on a beach for 6 months there was shopping that needed to be done. Trousers were described as a necessity as we were to be walking through rivers up to our waist during the 22km trek to reach the cave. As well as warm clothes to sleep in for the tent within the cave. Long thick knit weave socks were required for the hiking boots they provided and a waterproof jacket. So off we went, assuming being the only town next to the caves they would have cottoned on and sold everything needed- never assume.
A clever little man once told me 'Assumption is the mother of all f*** ups'
I ended up with a children's jacket and some men's average socks and opted to wear the elephant print typical traveller pants I already had as the combat army print trousered I had envisaged to be sold didn't exsist.
Chris being Chris went completely against our email of what was needed. Didn't buy socks, said he was going to wear his own trainers not there hiking boots and his ankle socks would be fine. No trousers, he actually went as far as saying.
'I'll bloody walk through the river in my shorts I don't give a s*** I'm well hard'

So the morning came and something I've forgotten to mention through all of this, is that I really really did NOT want to do the expedition. I was so nervous about it all I was getting cramps and pacing up and down waiting to be collected. I smashed a cup where I was outside so anxious and basically chain smoking.

So the bus pulled up, full of people geared up to there eyeballs in all the 'I'm going to a cave' clothing ready to go. There's me in the thinest pair of lounge linen trousers and Chris in his shorts tumbling on the bus with our back packs whilst all these holiday makers who you could tell had basically come on holiday to do the cave expedition stared at us.
Every time we stopped at another hotel I was just preying a fat person would get on, some one more un fit then me.
IT DIDNT HAPPEN.
We pulled up to the office met our guide and got our briefing. We were told what we were going to be doing, how dense the jungle was, how much climbing was involved, oh and about all the LEECHES in the rivers we needed to walk through. FANTASTIC.
We were given our hiking boots which were basically high top camouflage converse with little holes along the rubber soles so that the water would drain out quickly. As we all started packing our gear into our dry bags they provided ... Chris was approached by the manager and basically laughed at.
Where are your trousers?
I'm going in these.
Where are your long socks?
I don't have any!
PahHahahaha biggest fail ever Chris.
They highly recommend he wore long trousers because of the leeches in the river so he ended up having to wear my only other pair of purple travellers pants. Then he didn't have the socks for the hiking boots. So funny. Action man taken down a peg or two. My purple trousers looked good on him though.

So after we were all ready, which took a while as it was a large group of 15 we were on our way to the starting point.

We got out at the top of a 500 meter steep hill and began our decent. The ground was really wet where it had been showering the night before it was so slippery and difficult to get down. I was the first to fall on my arse. Then when we finally did reach the bottom I realised I was the only one that had fallen over, pretty standard for me.

We trekked for about another hour before we reached a spot where we had lunch. On our expedition we had a team of 8 porters following us with equipment and resources aswel as a ranger for safety. We asked if he had a gun, he laughed. He definitely had one.
We then trekked another hour before we arrived at a small minority village. Only 32 people lived in the village and it was normal here for brothers and sisters or cousins to marry. The chief of the village would accept money when his daughter was as young as 5 years old in exchange for her hand in marriage, sometimes he would accept money but another man would pay him more so he would take that instead. This could happen several times as the daughter would grow up until she reached pubity. I imagine the more beautiful she was the more money he would get. The people in the village used to live a lot closer to the caves nearer the water but after the worst flood vietnam had ever seen in 2010 that wiped the entire original village out, they decided to move to higher ground. The company Oxalis that we did the tour with helped them rebuild the new village as they donate a percentage of money from the tours to them. The caves are only accessed if you go directly through there land, so I guess there kind of paying them. I sat and played with the children and the dogs for a while whilst the others walked around the village. I wasn't too keen to see inside the huts plus it made me happy playing with the dogs lol.

After the village stop the hard work began, the jungle got dense, and the river crossings were frequent. As well as the leeches. The weather was about 16 degrees and overcast so inbetween river crossings walking in wet clothes and squelchy socks picking leeches off you wasn't pleasant. I'm lying actually, I didn't pick a single leech off me, I screamed until someone would take it off for me. The trek however was relatively easy, which surprised me. I think there might be a possibility im getting fitter! Ha. Just a small chance though.

Finally the cave was in sight. You could see the giant rock in the distance with a 100 meter wide hole- well slice about 100 meters high from ground level. Another 45 mins hike and one more river crossing and we were there. We were then given our head torches, helmets and gloves. We had to walk through the river that went directly into the cave until we reached some boulders. Then we began climbing. Like actual climbing. Our tour guide explained that before the flood in 2010 the cave looked completely different and it had lost a lot of its formation due to the sheer force of the flood. As we reached the peak of the boulders we were in line with the hole we had seen from a distance when we were approaching the cave. On the other side of the wall of boulders we had climbed we looked down to see our campsite. Absolutely stunning. Far from what I had imagined. The interior of this huge cave had sand for carpet. The tents all set up were lined along a pool of Aqua blue water. Sea view property right there.

Climbing down the other side of the boulders, my trousers tore completely in half. I'm talking from my crutch to my knee on both sides, slightly disappointing especially as I had taken the time the evening before to re enforce the stitching in the crutch area with my sewing kit. At the same time. I was intelligent enough to be wearing a pair of shorts underneath so it wasn't as mortifying as it could have been.

Once we got to the campsite and put our bags in our tents we were shown the 'toilet' which was a bucket in which you put sand in after you go. One scoop of sand for wee, two scoops for poop. Made me think about cats and cat litter. Didn't matter how well that cat hid that poo, it still STINKS!

Chris then went for a swim in our pool by moonlight. Something I was told by several people I would regret if I didn't do. Something I do NOT regret because I was nice and cosy drinking a cup of coffee and enjoyed watching Chris pretend it wasn't cold. Being photographer was just as good. We then had our dinner, an incredible spread of about 40 dishes, everything was so delicious, I don't even know what half of it was, but I ate LOADS. We were also given rice wine for the first time which is Vietnamese moonshine. I have no idea where they got the word wine from because it was more like a shot of petrol. Horrific.

We sat round the fire and told stories with the other guys on the tour, the sound of bats in the cave was so loud. It made me feel a bit
uneasy knowing how many thousands of bats were around us, although we were technically in there home. Some swooped so low to us you could almost touch them. Our guide told us that Hang En means swallow in vietnamese and the name of the cave came because during summer the cave is actual inhabited by more swallows then bats. There were ropes tied about 100 meters up to the side of the cave above the river and the local men would use these ropes to collect eggs. No harness, no shoes, perhaps it should be these guys taking people on the expedition i thought, they seem to know this caves more then anyone.

The next morning it was an early start to explore the rest of the cave. In total the cave was 1.8km. We began with a river crossing where the ceiling of the cave was really low, more like a cave you would picture a cave to be like really. After we got out the river there was a considerable amount of climbing. The smell of this area of the cave was indescribable. The colour of the rocks we were climbing resembled the the insides of railway bridges where pigeons in London live. BAT s*** EVERYWHERE! It was then you truly got a feel quite how many of them lived here. We were told not to look up. Incase we got pee or poo in our face, I didn't dare look up, I haven't actually asked Chris, but knowing him, I bet he did!

At the peak of this pile of boulders there it was, the entrance to the cave. 100 meters tall and 120 meters wide. With the bright colours of the jungle seeping in around the edges. It was like Jurassic park. It was at that point I thanked Chris for making me do the expedition. The latest Peter Pan film had actually been filmed in that exact area as never never land, that gives you some idea just how magical this place was. We climbed down to the bottom ran across the river (which was far deeper then I expected) and walked outside the cave. Following the river round was the ultimate tease, knowing that by that evening you could reach the opening of the largest cave in the world and explore that but knowing you weren't allowed too absolutely consumed chris. He kept asking to walk a little bit more, a little bit more, our guide did let us go a lot further then she was allowed too as the end of the tour technically was that entrance and Chris and I were already outside and around the corner.

After some time just stopped taking it all in we had to turn ourselves around and make our way back. Instead of climbing over all the boulders we walked through the river the whole way around to our campsite, which was really strong current wise and quite difficult being my height.

We packed up our stuff and began our trek back. On the way back we passed the shell of a bomb, it was about the size of me. It turned up there after the flood in 2010 no one knows where it was before but considering this area was so close to the DMZ area during the war it wasn't uncommon for bombs to be found here even now. Thousands of soilders died here.

After a few more hours trekking and river crossing and me still bouncing around like a child on haribo I was wondering why I ever doubted I could do the expedition. Oh until we reached the bottom of the hill of course. That hill from the beginning of the trip that I had even struggled to climb down let alone up. Was even more wet and slippery then before Infact there was a part about half way up that was flat for about 50 meters you could literally surf along the mud. Apart from it probably wouldn't have been advisable as the narrow path way and sheer drop of 500 meters on one side was quite concerning.

After about 1 hour 45 minutes and a near heart attack we finally made it to the top where the bus awaited us with a can of beer. The look of jubilation in my face at that moment in time was indescribable.

One more night in the village of Phong Nha and it was off to Hue our next stop.