Week Three - Phong Nha, Hanoi and that bus journey to Laos

That morning we left for Phong Nha which was our original destination, Dong Hoi just fitted in for a nice stop on the way. It took us about two and half hours and we arrived at Easy Tiger Hostel. The hostel had only been open a few years, the attraction that took us to Phong Nha were recently discovered caves (founded by a Yorkshire couple in 2007 and opened in 2010 to the public) and so westerners had only been visiting the area over the last 4 years. Once we arrived at the hostel we got chatting to Chiago (the super cute reception guy - who we later found out, to our disappointment, was gay. He became a great friend of ours, calling us the "crazy British girls", we made plans to later meet up with him in Bangkok and San Fransico). The hostel was great, everything you would want from a travelling hostel, a huge communal area, music, bar and cafe. We mooched in our room and later went down to the communal area, we shot some pool, took advantage of happy hour and just incase we hadn't already done it enough, made some new friends, played lots of drinking games and got seriously drunk. We had a nice group 11, all who wanted to see the caves, we arranged to all go together the next day on our bikes and have a massive road trip. We fell into bed at about 6am and set our alarms for 8:30am!
The next day, we packed and struggled our way downstairs, the crew all sat on one table, ate breakfast and we shared jokes from the night before then made tracks for the caves. We were heading to the Paradise Caves and then the Dark Caves. The caves were almost in a loop on the roads so was easy to get from one to the other. Today was my euphoria day, as we were all cruising on our bikes, feeling cool as hell may I add, driving through the mountains, I thought to myself 'Wow, this is actually my life' I woohoo'd on the back of Andy's bike in celebration.
After a brief stint getting lost (we didn't have a sat nav), we arrived at the Paradise Caves, unknown to us, that you had to trek up a mountain to get to. With each of us carrying a hangover, we climbed to the top of the mountain to a tiny hole in the side, we entered and there was a lit staircase that ran through the caves. It was amazing and beautiful. We all spoke about how the Yorkshire couple who discovered the cave must have felt when they came across it, they were keen trekkers and searched for caves in their spare time, it was breathtaking for us so we couldn't imagine how they must've felt! We spent around 2 hours there, climbed back down the mountain and jumped back onto our bikes and headed to the Dark Caves. With anx, me and the guys zip lined over the river into the 'Dark Cave', as we welded through some freezing cold water in our life jackets, our tour guide disappeared into a hole in the side of the cave. We climbed, fell and dug our way through the caves, there was plenty of water and clay and so the occasional clay ball was being launched between the group. We ended up at a clay slide that flung us into a clay pool, we all turned our head torches off and had a mass clay fight. We were covered, everyone blinded and deafened by the clay. We continued deeper into the caves then ended at some water, by this time the clay had started to dry so we were all greatful to be able to have a quick wash. We spent some time in the water spooking each other out and kiacked back to base, dried off and headed back to our hostel for a shower and a group dinner with goodbyes.
We left on a sleeper bus for Hanoi, I was exhausted from the day and the night before that so I managed to sleep pretty well, before I knew it it was 7:30am and we were getting woken up by a local pulling us off the bus and hurling us into a taxi with the promise of a free taxi ride and a cheap hostel. You could immediately tell we were in the city, we'd spent a lot of time relaxing in little towns and villages since Ho Chi Minh and in truth, within 10 mins of us being there we were already fed up. We checked into our hostel and slept till that evening. Luckily for us, that day Hanoi was celebrating its 60th anniversary of independence. There was a festival by the river, a mass firework display and 100's of local dressed up for the occasion. It was madness, locals were in tears and applauded every firework. After the event we went to a couple of bars and had been recommended a secret club called the Lighthouse (by secret I mean illegal - there was a music curfew in Vietnam). It was SO good, I was missing music and raving back home and this slotted in nicely, I missed the girls. I tilted my head back and danced away. Again it was a late (or early) one and we crawled into bed at about 6am. For a change, following those early morning nights out we slept most of the day, stocked up on carbs, and waited for of sleeper bus to Laos to arrive, it's fair to say we was hardly looking forward to the 24 hour journey!!
We were woke up in Zombie town at the Laos border at about 7:30am. It was bizarre. The place genuinally looked like a set from an upcoming zombie movie. A quarantine building, a derelict gas station, several roaming dogs, a water buffalo and no one about others then those on our bus. After an hour or so we managed to get our visa to enter Laos and once again we was off on the road. The roads here are rocky and bumpy, a smooth drive honestly lasts no longer then a few minutes until your getting chucked into air, it would probably make it slightly more comfortable if the driver slowed down for the pot holes and half built roads but that didn't look like it was going to happen any time soon! By this time we were extremely adgertated, we had been on the bus for about 22 hours, had nothing but a can of crisps and were told we needed to get off the bus and wait in the middle of nowhere, we refused angrily and told the driver he would need to take us to Luang Prubang. Another 8 hours later we arrived, mad, hungry, Mardy and oh yeh... mad! We checked into hostel Veradesa, had our wifi fix and headed out for some food. It was about 10:30pm here and everything shuts at 10pm, this is because everyone in the village have to wake up to feed the villages' monks. We managed to grab a street food stir fry, had a slight wonder and headed back to our hostel.
The following day we were up to see the waterfalls as planned, still feeling aggravated and missing my personal space I decided to have a day on my own to explore and Alex headed to the waterfalls with a guy Linton, who decided to follow our path through Laos for a while. I slowly got ready, enjoyed abit of girlie time and headed out with my camera. Luang Prubang had some stunning temples and I strolled around, observed the monks in their day to day lives and took some pictures. I treated myself to a massage and headed back. We was in a very spiritual town and it was very peaceful, just what I needed. Our hostel had a decking area with chimes, lanterns and mats. I grabbed my book, had a lie down and nodded off. A few hours later Alex arrived back (I'd missed her), we exchanged stories and pictures from our day.
That night we headed to the night market, we found an 'all you can eat' type food stall for 15000 kip and decided to tuck in. It was really good, fresh noddles, meat, vegetables and more. It was just what we needed in a meal. We'd heard about a bar called Utopia and checked it out, with a nice chilled vibe, we sat on the floor mats and drank a Lao rum and coke. Utopia closed at 11:30am, again because of a music curfew. The only place to go was a bowling alley, it was also kind of 'illegal' and once everyone was through the door, the doors were shut as if the place was closed. We bought a bottle of Rum for 60000 kip and played bowling with a big group. With the bowling alley closing we went back to a hostel, got some beers and hung out with a group of people (we met two quirky posh guys from Bath who we later explored Laos with) all of course talking little sense due to the alcohol intake. Before we knew it it was 5am, and so we thought it would be a nice idea, to watch (out of the way of course) the locals feed the monks. We strolled back to our hostel shortly after arriving for about 7am. I think it was time for bed, by this time Alex and I were slurring and both collapsed on our beds. Lights off!