We arrived in Phong Nha at 5 o'clock in the morning after no sleep.. We went to a hostel, where we had to wait for 1 hour before we could check in and 6 more hours before we could go to our room. It was a really hard morning. At 9 there were information about the national park and the caves.
Matze, Kevin, Ralf and I decided to book a tour, so we could see a lot of things.
After seeing our rooms we all fell asleep for a couple of hours.
While I waited downstairs for the guys to wake up, I met tree others, a couple and a friend from England and Germany. We ended up going for supper together with the Germans and do karaoke in the evening. It was so much fun! Even though the Vietnamese looked really weird at us.
Next morning we went on the national park tour. It was very interesting. We got picked up early in the morning and drove to the botanic garden where we saw monkeys and a beautiful waterfall. The view from above the waterfall was stunning. You could see far out in the horizon between mountains. Amazing. Thereafter were we driven to a bridge where we got told about the American/Vietnamese war and the importance of the roads, caves and rivers during the war. Some of the holes which led into caves were so tiny, that a human could barely crawl into it. We drove further on to the seven sisters cave where a group of people who sought cover in the cave during an attack by the Americans. They where caught in there by falling rocks and starved to death after a couple of days. Even today people come to pray for the people who died in there. It was beautiful to see how they burned paper money and clothes for the dead.
After the seven sisters cave we went to paradise cave. It was a really beautiful cave with so many colours and shapes that you could keep on taking pictures forever... In there we met Toby (German guy from karaoke evening). He joined us for the tour in the dark cave. It was a lot of fun! There were zip lining, swimming, mud bathing and kayaking. After that our tour was finished, and we returned to the hostel. We were all worn out, so we had a chill evening.
Early next morning the German guys left for Danang. Luckily there was a lot of sweet people in my dorm, that I could spent time with. We were a small group of solo-travellers from around Europe (Reini and Jaara, Holland, Romain, France, Kinga, Poland and Yasmin, Mike and Nicky, England/Scotland). We went to the Phong Nha Cave, which we had to visit by boat. It was a really nice way to the cave and the history behind is was fascinating. Used as hospital and cover during the war.. The cave itself was not so impressive compared to the paradise cave.
In the evening we chilled and I was thaught how to drive a scooter. I really sucked at it. It was so bad that even the locals looked at me nervously!
In the evening the girls and Romain left with the night bus to Hoi An, so the guys and I stayed up till late to play cards. I had to get up at 4 AM because of my bus. The trip was survivable but not to comfy. On the way I met four really funny English and Australian guys, whom I went with to the hostel in Hoi An by taxi.