Friday 10 - Phong NHA Cave

Today we took a tour to the Phong Nha Cave. We departed our hotel at 6:30AM and arrived in Phong Nha (World Heritage site) at 11:45 and had lunch. After, we boarded a boat for a ride up the river to the cave. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phong_Nha-Kẻ_Bàng_National_Park ) The river runs from Laos through Vietnam to the South China Sea. An interesting fact about the cave is that during the Vietnam War the caves were used by the North Vietnamese. They kept their military supplies, ammunication, etc., had a hospital and lived in the caves. The US tried to bomb the caves but were unsuccessful and failed to destroy this post.

Gathering seaweed that is used to feed the fish in the fish farms.

Entrance to cave system.

Standing inside the cave in an area that had a sandy beach. The North Vietnamese Army had a hospital located at this site.

  

Boats had to wait their turn when going inside the cave. Our boat took us into Laos, as which point the cave became to narrow to navigate and could only be accessed by a canoe.

We were in the cave system about an hour and then back up the river to the tour bus and home. We arrived home around 7:30PM. The bus ride was 4 hours each way and pretty bumpy. We got to chat with the other people in the bus but we were pretty worn out by the time we got back to the Jade Hotel.

The day didn't end here.  Our protector, Otter, picked us up and took us to a vegetarian restaurant to eat supper. 

Pho vegetarian soup with tofu and some kind of food wrapped in banana leaves.

In bed by 10:30PM.