Harrow Dong Hoi

18th - 20th May - Farm Life...without the manual labour

We arrived back from our night train in Hanoi at 5am on Friday the 18th May. We were all a bit dazed and confused and found solace on the massive bean bags located on the "chill out" floor of the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel. We launched our tired selves on these beanbags and grabbed a few extra hours sleep until about 9am. When we woke, feeling a little more human we had breakfast and spent the day doing a few housekeeping necessities (you've seen the pictures...so to say our clothes from trekking in Sapa were somewhat in need of the laundry would be quite the understatement).

That afternoon we said goodbye to the last of our Halong Bay friends, Phil the German. He had spent the last month travelling by bike from the south of Vietnam to the north and after selling his motorbike would now be heading back home to Germany to study. Me, Zara and Dai on the otherhand, were FINALLY going to be leaving Hanoi behind us to continue our journey south through Vietnam. Next stop on our (incredibly loose) itinerary was Dong Hoi - 600km south of Hanoi, 11 hours by night bus. That evening we repacked our bags, with our fresh mud-free clothes, and boarded the most bizarre night bus to date! At this point in our journey I had yet to experience a night bus so I really didn't know what to expect. I didn't expect what I now refer to as Discobus 2000. The bus, from the outside looked like a large coach. However on the inside, it was organised into three rows of "sleepers", with two aisles in between. Each row of sleepers had a top and bottom bunk. The sleeper seats themselves reminded me of bumper cars, the way they wrapped around you, it's so hard to explain. And to top it off the whole bus was luminated with bright coloured lighting. Hopefully this pic will give you a better idea:

Zara, Dai and Me up top on Discobus!

Honestly, felt like I was in a bumpercar

As if this wasn't random enough, when the bus started moving they suddenly started playing Clubland music throughout the bus accompanied by videos from what looked like clubs in Ibiza from about 10 years ago. We all just looked at each other like "wtf is going on". After not sleeping in a bed for the past 3 nights I decided there was only one thing to do...valium, sleeping mask and earplugs. Night y'all.

I was woken at 5am by Dai in the "sleeper" in front of me, he'd just been told that we would soon be arriving in Dong Hoi. The bus itself was heading for Hue, so we were the only people who would be leaving the bus in Dong Hoi. Our reasons for stopping in Dong Hoi were to go to the Phong Nha Farmstay. This is a small farmhouse ran by an Australian guy and his Vietnamese wife - Ben and Bich. They have built a small guesthouse located in the real Vietnamese countryside with 10 rooms, surrounded by paddy fields that they harvest. Bich's brother also built a large dorm in his house next door which offers more affordable accommodation for backpackers like us just looking for somewhere to crash.

The place looked absolutely idyllic. After hearing from some others that it was quite small and therefore quite popular, we had booked our beds here before leaving for Sapa a few days previously.

We emerged from the bus bleary-eyed and tired at the crack of dawn, on the side of the road in a very empty and quiet Dong Hoi. Upon booking, Ben the owner had given us a phone number to ring to let them know where we had been dropped off and they arranged a pick up for us. I called the number, getting the address of where we were from a nearby hotel sign. After a few rings, a disorientated "hello?" greeted me from the other end of the line. I gently explained who I was and that we were instructed to call to arrange a pick-up from our bus. "That booking was for yesterday" I was informed. "Eh" I replied, "I'm sorry if there's been a mistake but we definitely meant to book it for today, is it eh still possible to stay?" I was told to give them a few minutes to wake up and call back.

"Balls." I turned to Zara and Dai and explained what I'd just been told. We looked at each other and almost began to laugh. Here we were, sitting on our rucksacks at 5am on the side of the road in this one-horse town in the arsehole of nowhere in Vietnam, possibly having nowhere to go and nowhere to stay that night. Frankly it was all we could do at that stage! I'd love to tell you some longwinded tale of how we hitch-hiked with some interesting Vietnamese farmer on his tractor -esque story but well, the situation was resolved with a quick phonecall - the farm were able to organise a pickup and our booking could still stand, we just had to wait 15mins. Phew.

We arrived at the Farmstay itself, and all the good stories we'd been told were confirmed within seconds. This was the view from the front porch of the farm:

The farm itself was also really pretty. It had a large pool out the back, and there were plenty of hammocks for lounging in, in the common bar/lounge area, and a menu with lots of tasty food for an affordable price.

Apart from the peace and quiet of staying out in the country after a hectic week in and out of Hanoi, our main reason for visiting this region of Vietnam was to go to Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park, which is home to the world's largest cave - Paradise Cave. Every second day, Ben and Bich organised trips to the cave which included visiting other areas of the National Park itself also. When we arrived at the farm we realised that today was the day they would be doing a trip there so we wiped the sleep from our eyes, grabbed a quick breakfast and headed off in a minivan. The views of the Vietnamese countryside along the way were simply stunning:

Our first stop was at Paradise Cave itself. At this point we did not know much about the cave apart from the little blurb we read in the lonely planet so we weren't quite sure what to expect. Little did we know what we were in for! After the short trip to the cave, we emerged from our mini-van, we followed the other tourists and began a short, but steep hike up to the cave in question. When we walked through the entrance, what greeted our eyes was staggering:

I know it is the world's largest cave so y'know it should be pretty big, but the vastness of it was crazy. And to guide you through it were these crazy staircases that reminded me of the moving staircases in Gryffindor in Harry Potter!!

The cave was so large, it took us a good 40 minutes to walk as deep into it as we were permitted. Within the cave itself the various stone formations were so impressive - if my primary school geography serves me right the stalactites and stalacmites were all over the place!

After we emerged from the cave, we had lunch with the group from our farm, then we travelled into the park itself and took a quick dip in one of the lakes within the park:

After that we went to another area of the park which wasn't too interesting, but on our journey back, all of a sudden the van driver stopped whilst we were travelling down the road, jumped out of the van and started pointing towards the tree covered wall across the roadfrom us. We all got out of the van to find out what the hell was going on when we realised he was pointing to monkeys jumping in the trees - I managed to rummage my camera out in time to grab a quick shot:

He's the black blob amongst the greenery!

It was really cool! This was the first time I'd seen monkeys in the wild (I think...) so it was exciting to see them just out and about and not in some cage!

That evening, when we we arrived back at the farmstay we were thoroughly shattered! It had been a long long day between nightbuses, caves and monkeys so we had a nice dinner at the farmstay and just hit the hay.

We had only booked to stay two nights at the farmstay, so the following day myself and Zara decided to take advantage of the pool and chilled surroundings of the farm and have a thorougly lazy day! It had been a hectic week or so in Vietnam, and we had blogs to write, and a pool to lounge in! Dai, not being quite as lazy as me and Zara rented a bike and headed out exploring with some of the other travellers staying in the farmstay. We had a lovely day, just chilling around the pool and got some writing done on the blog.

We had a really enjoyable time in Dong Hoi - it was nice to escape the hustle and bustle and really get a feel for what rural Vietnamese life and countryside is like. Next stop on our journey would be Hoi An, and well that was a WHOLE different kettle of fish...