Phong Nha

Exploring Caves & Kẻ Bàng National Park.

Phong Nha  is rapidly expanding to accommodate visitors who are descending on this small little sleepy  park edge town to view the Caves in the Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park.  

Its mainly one long road that comprises of plenty of hostels, guest houses, and home stays.If you take this road a little out of the main area you will find a more pleasant area with guest houses and home stays which have views of the river and valley. In town are a few small bars, popular back packing hostels, coffee houses and a couple of places to eat. 

Near the main bus stop area there is a small market area, tourist ticket booths and street food vendors but apart from that the town is tiny. People visit here on daily bus trips from Dong Hoi City to rent scooters and bicycle to go view the caves.

Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park  borders the Hin Namno Nature Reserve in Khammouane, its situated in a limestone zone with the main area covering 857.54 km² surveyed in 2009 bringing its total length of cave systems to 126 km. The area is full of large cave systems, Paradise Cave, Hang En, Phong Nha Cave, Dark Cave, and most famous of all and recorded as the biggest cave in the world The Hang Sơn Đoòng Cave.

Hang Sơn Đoòng  ‘cave of the mountain river’  also known as Sơn Đoòng cave entrance was discovered by a local man named Ho Khanh in 1991. British cave explores were the first to explore it in 2009. The caves main chamber  is more than 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) long, 200 meters (660ft) high and 150 meters (490 ft) wide. Replacing the Deer Cave in Malaysia as the largest cave in the world, from the Deer Cave in Malaysia.  In side the cave there are places, where the ceiling collapsed and created huge skylights, these then where exposed to the world outside and emerging with in them Jungles that have their own localized weather system. The government restricts the amount of people entering annually and the price of an expedition is quite expensive. If your a cave explorer type I´m certain its worth the fee of up to $3,000 for an expedition but if your not in your budget like me then theres other caves are breath taking and cost a fraction of that.

• Phong Nha Cave costs 150,000 VND ($7) per person to enter. You will also need to hire boat to access the cave which costs 320,000 VND, the cost of which can be split with other passengers.

• Thien Duong (Paradise Cave) costs 250,000 VND ($11.50) per person.
• Hang Toi (Dark Cave) costs 350,000 VND ($16) per person to tour.

The The Phong Nha Cave which contains famous rock formations with delightful names such as “Lion”, “Fairy Caves”,  “Royal Court”, and  “Buddha”.  It is 7729 m long, contains 14 grottos, 1500m of which tourists have access to. Stalagmites glitter in the extremely well lit cavernous areas and you enter its mouth via the The Son River in a small traditional wooden long boat.  Inner Caves range from between 25 and 40 meters above the water level. Chambers lead though corridors that lead though spectacular landscapes of sand and rock.  Towers cascade downward from above and upward and you get the feeling your walking on an Astroid. Or you could be in Ripley´s worst nightmare; the mother Alien´s nest. It’s so spectacular that photo´s here will just not do this marvelous creation justice.

Don´t fancy looking at caves then the surrounding park is equally stunning. The Ho Chi Minh Trail weaves though Kẻ Bàng National Park, passing scenery that can only be described as out of Jurassic Park. You kind of expect a pterodactyl to swoop down and snatch you of your motorbike.  Although the roads are maintained though out by rangers during rains they flood with dirt slides. Its not a place to break down or run out of gas i had the unfortunate experience of doing as theres nothing here but park.

read my ´dinner with the dogs´ blog post here:  breaking down, getting caught in bad weather and camped with the rangers and their five stay dogs.