Cherish free breakfasts
The pair of us had a reasonable lie in today. You gotta get them where you can, because they don’t come too often. We also enjoyed our free breakfast, probably the last one for some time to be honest. Not many places give free breakfasts out when staying in dorm rooms. I had a pancake this morning with chocolate sauce, I though I’d indulge myself. After we’d eaten breakfast, we headed back to our rooms to chill. We had a bus to Phong Nha at 2pm, and had to check out at 12pm.
Once we had checked out, the hostess was kind enough to let us keep our stuff at reception. We headed out for lunch at a nearby restaurant. I had some sweet n sour chicken with rice, but it’s not quite as good as the OG Chinese recipe! We took it easy and chilled at this place for a while too, watching the world go by. When it was getting close to 2pm, we decided to head back to the hostel and wait for the bus to Phong Nha. Again, this was organised by the hostess at the hostel. This seems to be pretty common in Asia so far.
Quiet drive North
At around 2pm our driver collared us to the bus. We thanks the hostess and were on our way. Seems we were the first ones on the bus. We drove off and stopped around the corner. A couple boarded and sat towards the back of the bus. After this, we were on our way to Phong Nha. This region was in the forests, and littered with caves. In fact it’s home to the largest cave in the world. Our plan was to explore some of them. The bus to Phong Nha was only 4 hours long, and it was nice and quiet, giving me chance to relax.
Part way through the journey, the dude who got on the bus came to speak to us. He offered us some banana chips. His name was Ben and his girlfriend was called Anna. They were from a special region in Italy near the Alps; this region was gifted to Italy after World War 1. We spoke for a good amount of time as he was very friendly and had a good head on his shoulders.
Arriving in Phong Nha
It was dark by the time we got off the bus. We planned on going for food with Ben and Anna once we’d checked into our hostels. So we went our separate ways for now. We found our hostel/homestay just off of the main road. The homestay we stayed at was called Ngoc’s Garden House. It was nice and quiet with nicely furnished rooms. Phong Nha itself is mainly comprised of just one long road with restaurants, shops, and hostels. Our homestay was actually very nice. We were given a bungalow which was very well furnished, quite impressed.
Whilst checking in, we read through a booklet which consisted of tours. We decided to do a day tour tomorrow which would involve exploring a couple of caves, plus some water based activities. These tours may not seem cheap when on a budget, ours was around 1 million Dong, this is still only £35 or so. So in the grand scheme of things, the memories, experiences, and sights you’d see outweighed the cost of the tour. No regrets!
A nice evening
Mat was chatting with Anna over text, and when they signalled they were ready, we headed down the street to meet them. On the way, we met a few kids who were playing in the street. They ran up to us and threw their arms up. I knew the drill, I picked one up by the arms and started swinging them around. These kids absolutely loved it, so did I, I was laughing and smiling. It’s little memories like this that stay with you, and make the journey special. We also had a short race with them, I can’t keep up with kids nowadays!
Ben and Anna were waiting for us at a very popular barbecue restaurant. They cooked whole pigs on a barbecue, it was pretty impressive, and a crowd favourite. The place was rammed with fellow travellers from the West. We also tried some of the pork, it was actually really nice, even though I’m not keen on pork myself. After the food, we left the restaurant and went for a walk down the road. The 4 of us ended up walking all the way to the other side of town (just down the road). It was really nice talking to them, level headed people. They were planning on living in New Zealand after they’d travelled around Vietnam.
They also mentioned they’d be going on the same tour tomorrow, so that will be cool. Shortly after, we all went back to our hostels as we had early start tomorrow morning.
