Phong Nha Cave Tour in Phong Nha Ke Bang

In town, there are many good looking restaurants and after a nice breakfast, we rented a scooter to also start discovering the area. And again, WOW is the only expression that comes to my mind. The lush fields, green mountains and the blue river that cuts through all of this make it an unbelievable pretty scenery. And again, driving along on a scooter is the perfect way to enjoy this! There was hardly any traffic, too!

Having Fun at Dark Cave
We stopped at Dark Cave, where we had to wait for a tour to open up for us. At first, the lady told us that there would be no more tours today but since a minute ago she had just told an Asian couple that they had to wait until 3pm, we insisted on receiving tickets as well. 45min later we could get our equipment, still more people arriving.

First, we climbed a tower and then rode a really long zip-line across the river. On the other side, we got the first chance to jump into the green river water, which for once seemed clean. Then we were ordered to turn on our headlamps and followed our guide into the cave (through about 500 butterflies, which made everything really kitsch.

Mud Bath
In the beginning, there was a wooden path but then we started climbing over very muddy rocks. It got more and more muddy until we were wading into a pool of pure mud. It was very funny because we were lifted up like a cork. It was a challenge to push my legs to the ground. That mud bath was great and we all looked very funny. Again I wish to have a go pro, so that I could have documented all of this.

Then we had to stumble back out of the cave and had no choice but to use a mud-slide down a dirt hill. That was not the most comfortable slide ever…
Finally, we reached the river again,  where we canoed back to the starting area and could jump into the water to clean us off. I guess it will take a few days to really get rid off all the dirt.

Planning:

I recommend you do the cave in the morning, so that you have enough time to enjoy the zip-lines, jumps and water games at the end. It was already 5pm when we got there and since we wanted to get back into town before it got dark, we didn’t linger around for long. I would have liked to visit the waterfall and there are more caves in that area (for example the longest cave of Vitnam: Phong Nha Cave) to be visited but unfortunately, night buses only leave at 4.30am as well. We didn’t want to spend another day and half a night in Phong Nah, so we returned our scooters tried to get another few hours of sleep in the hotel.

To sum it up: wonderful landscape and a great experience in Dark Cave!