Mud Fiiiiiiiiight! (21/2/14)

The bus was due to leave at 8.45 so I had a small lay in before breakfasting and getting my bits together. We all jumped on the bus and the guide, Christy from Norway, got us all to introduce ourselves and give a brief sentence about our trip. There were a couple from America who started their trip on their honeymoon, and it's a year of travelling in total. They finish in July. I'm going to link my blog to theirs at some point. There were 8 of us from our hostel in total but we joined up with some people from the homestay down the road which actually included the couple from Brighton that I'd got chatting to whilst waiting for the night bus from Hanoi. There were about 22 in total. On our small bus Christy started giving us some facts about the national park and our first stop was at a temple where an English speaking guide told us more about the park and the temples history. We then took the bus to paradise cave. This was very similar to yesterday's cave but on a grander scale. Just as awesome if not more so. It was huge inside with more water formed stalagmites and stalactites but this one we walked through and the guide stopped and explained things as we went. After paradise cave we had lunch at one of the restaurants by the car park. There was loads of food and it all tasted good as usual. After lunch was dark cave. We changed into our swimming costumes and headed down the road to where we were going to get the kayaks and put on a helmet with headtorch, a life vest, and some plastic Roman styled sandals. We grabbed an oar and paired up to go in the kayaks. I went with Stephanie and after going in circles a few times we finally got to the landing jetty by the cave entrance. We left our sandals there. We all started walking into the cave and the sand slowly started getting more clay like and eventually turned into a weird muddy goop. Each step we took let out a fart noise from beneath and we were in hysterics as we got further into the cave. The passage got really narrow and we ended up single file by the end. The cave was a dead end and our guide had gone on ahead to take a high vantage point and started to throw mud at various people as they got into the last chamber. We all filed in and we turned off our lights to see how dark it was. Pitch black. Then it began. Lights went on and someone shouted "mud fiiiiiight" and we all got our own back on the guide. He was covered. People had it in their mouths, their hair, and there was no clean water to rinse it out. It was brilliant. The guide dragged Christy over and you couldn't recognise her after. After about 15 mins of lobbing mud we decided enough was enough and headed out. We went a different way and so ended up on a beach and got into the water to rinse off. It was really cold. But good to be clean...ish. We then swam further into the cave to see some fossils, heard a bit more about the history and then swam back out with lights off just heading for the daylight. The tide had come in since and our sandals were now covered but the water there was so much warmer it was actually pleasant to get in. We paired up again to get in the kayaks and headed back to the starting point and got out of our safety gear. We then dried off and changed before having some hot soup to drink and about 5 shots of Vietnamese rum each. Christy took us all back to the hostel, we thanked her and all disappeared to get a clean shower. We met at dinner downstairs and laughed about the day while exchanging more travelling stories. We hit all the happy hours again, and a little bit tipsy I went to settle my debts at the reception and check out. I was behind a girl, and the guy at the counter, Seamus from Ireland, asked if we were together and I responded, jokingly, not yet. This got him chuckling. She didn't seem impressed. Then the guy served me, with his colleagues nearby, he checked my bill and asked if I'd had food, I said yes but I'd paid for everything at the time rather than put it on my tab so there wouldn't be anything on there. His colleague, Tom, said "ah you didn't fall for the tab trick, that usually gets people". I said "no, I learnt my lesson about tabs in a strip club in Lisbon". This had Tom and Seamus on the floor in laughter. Seamus actually asked if I could stay longer, to which I said if it's free, and he said in his Irish lilt, "for jokes like that I'll bloody pay for you". Alas I couldn't afford the time but would certainly have taken them up on their offer otherwise. More drinks was followed by late night cheesy chips and a well deserved half 10 bedtime. The day had been absolutely brilliant and definitely something I hadn't done before. Roll on tomorrow.