We stopped a few times during the night at petrol stations, both to drop people off as well as wee stops. At the wee stops I'm pretty sure if I breathed I would catch something deadly. You could smell the toilets 20 yards away. So I held my breath and was in and out, only touching the floor, as quick as poss. This, however, gave me hope that I'd also be dropped at a petrol station and could put fuel straight in the bike. I'm sure you can all work out that's not how my Vietnam trip goes. So after being dropped off at half 6, the Brighton couple had jumped in a cab, and another couple had also departed I was left alone again in the dark with google maps pointing me down the road to a petrol station. The walk took about half an hour and fortunately no one stopped to offer help so I didn't need to tell anyone to piss off. With fuel in I loaded my route on the phone and headed the 40 km to the hostel I had booked called Easy Tiger. I'd done this at the start of last nights journey in emails on the bus. They'd sent me loads of info and I'd even chosen which cave trip I wanted to do that the hostel ran. Dong Hoi is the closest town, that public transport goes to, to Phong Nha national park which is on the Ho Chi Minh trail and played an important part in the war. There are caves all over the park and each one offers a different experience with various price ranges. Being short on time it had been recommended by the hostel that I do the paradise cave trek which took me 4 km into the cave, 3 km further than the general public, and it was the best cave to do. Although I found out after that because of water levels in the cave at this time of year I'd only be walking an extra kilometre than the public but the price had been reduced to reflect this and was still good. The hostel booked me onto it for Friday which meant I'd need to spend 2 nights at the hostel. I arrived at the hostel at half 7 and checked in but couldn't get to my room till 11 so asked about which trips or activities I could do that day. I was told to speak to another member of staff later who knew more about the trips and so spent the morning planning my timings for most of my time in the south. I booked a couple of hostels and wrote down the places I'd like to see. At 10 I spoke to another member of staff about trips that day and he recommended going on a visit with some women who were on their way from a homestay nearby. By combining numbers we could hire a boat and a guide between us all and pay less each. I had time for a quick shower before they got there and took the opportunity so as to save everyone the awkward conversation of who it was that stank. By the time I was out, more people had joined the group and we now had 11 people to split the cost between. We left the hostel at about 11 and walked up the road to the park entrance and booked our boat. The cave we were visiting was Phong Nha cave and we would be travelling through it by boat. On the way I spoke to some of the group and found out their travelling stories and met an Indian bloke from Hounslow. He'd made a very similar decision to me about travelling and so we got on pretty well. The boat motored down the river to the cave but once inside cut the engine and rowed the journey into the cave, turned around and rowed back out towards the entrance and dropped us at a beach inside the cave. We got the time to explore on foot for a bit. The entire cave was lit in various places along the route and was absolutely stunning. I've never seen anything like it before, not even in the numerous caves I've visited in the UK. The photos just don't do it justice. We walked back out to the entrance and caught up with the boat further along the shore and jumped in for the journey back to where we'd started. It was a very relaxing and pleasant way to spend the day and we got back to the hostel about 3. I checked into my room, had a proper shower and sorted out my belongings as I'd packed in rather a hurry in Hanoi. I put some washing in, with my fingers crossed, and went downstairs just in time for the sunset happy hour, bogof on gin and tonic. Or gin and 7 up as I later found out! This led to chatting with some of the blokes from the cave visit, dinner, and then 2 more happy hours, the first one on beer and the second on rum and coke. Some drinks later we were chatting and laughing like we'd been mates for years. There were guys from Germany, Canada, America, and England. We all swapped recommendations about tailors in hoi an, hostels in Hanoi and such like. I found out from one of the hostel staff that I was the only one doing the paradise cave trip and as it was a minimum of two people they had to cancel it and would I like to do another trip instead. I chose the national park trip which included a drive round the park with a guide, a visit to the first kilometer of paradise cave and a visit to dark cave which involved kayaking, a mud trek followed by a swim and then more kayaking. It was cheaper than my original idea and so I booked onto this one instead. During the evening I got a whatsapp message from Stephanie who I'd met in Sa Pa saying she'd seen my facebook update about being in Phong nha and was I nearby. She was staying in the easy tiger hostel. As it turns out she was sitting 5 metres from me all evening we just hadn't seen each other. I found her and we caught up for a bit before she booked herself on the same cave visit as me and got the last space. Slowly we all hit the tiredness wall and went our separate ways at the end of the night and I headed up to bed at a reasonable 10.30 pm. It felt so much later.
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