We got collect bright and early from the Nam Long hotel and were brought to the Phong Nha Farmstay which was only about 45minutes drive away. We arrived and checked in and were ushered straight onto a bus for our National Park tour.

We started off driving through the park and stopping and certain pints of interest and the perfect places for pictures. The road was made during the war because it was their way to travel from Vietnam to Laos and because there was only one road they could see their enemies coming. We learned loads about the war and little things that you'd never discover on your own.

We then made our way to Paradise cave. We got buggies to the base of this massive hill and then we had ONLY 500 steps to walk up to get to the peak
of this hill. My fitness has been tried on numerous occasions on this trip and I'm sure it will continue to be because they sure seem to like steps. Once we go up we then went through a passageway to discover at least another 500 steps which brought you down into the cave. It's amazing to see the cave and the formation of the rocks.

It's weird to think that they only discovered that cave a short time ago and they have walkways throughout it so you can continue right to the end. This cave is massive!! Of course when you reach the end there isn't a lift to bring you up but you have to retrace your steps and make your way back through the cave and back up the mass of steps.

The views on the way down the mountain were amazing and we were promised lunch when we reached the bottom so obviously there was a slight spring in our step.

After lunch we then made our way to a stunning part of the park which had waterfalls and bamboo walkways. This was stunning and some people went for a swim while we were here.

We then made our way to a place where we were going kayaking. We weren't exactly told anything about what we were doing at this stage. We were asked to put our swimwear on, given a life jacket, a headlamp and half a paddle.

We kayaked across this river towards a place called dark cave. Kela and Emer kayaked together and it wasn't very successful for them with going in the wrong direction for the majority of the way. I was with a Canadian girl and we got on perfectly.

The cave had walkways into it and when we got in so far we were in complete darkness which I guess is where they get the name 'Dark Cave'.
We turned the headlamps on and we were shown a path through the rocks and waterways. We came to a massive lake in the middle of the cave which we then swam through. I can honestly say if I'd known there was so much swimming I probably would have freaked at the start but when I was there I just went with the flow. This was such a brilliant experience although I whacked my foot so hard of a sharp rock I thought it would fall off. We continued on to a stone surface and we stood there in silence with our lights off. The sounds of the cave were beautiful and it was so peaceful. We then swam back and when you were making your way out of the cave it looked fab and we all couldn't believe what we just did. If you're ever around there I would 100% recommend doing this because its a fantastic experience and something you'll probably do once on your life.

We then kayaked back over the lake for some hot soup and a few shots of rum to warm up the belly! We made our way back to the Phong Nha Farmstay where our time was very chilled out and we drank a lot of beer around a campfire. The weather wasn't great and it rained quite a bit here but still I was amazed that we had a campfire in Vietnam.

We had just two nights here but it was very enjoyable especially not to be in the middle of the hustle and bustle. They could do this at home and make a fortune because we stayed in the back arse of nowhere and sure it felt like home except they had buffalo instead of cows and rice paddies instead of field..... Same, same but different!!

We organised our train ticket to Hue and made a move early the next day.