From Hoi An to our next destination we traveled about 340 km … to Phong Nha, in the Ke Bang nature park, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It is a mountainous region that is characterized by its spectacular caves, it is believed that more than 300, of which only about 20 have been explored.

When arriving as always we look for guest house. This time it was not complicated, since the town is a street … Asking we got a double room for 220,000 Dongs (a little less than $ 10) in the Elegant Hostel, with a good breakfast and air conditioning, all very correct.

The town is full of hostels for backpackers, at night there is live music and a lot of progress in the Easy tiger, although everything a little more expensive. To eat the choice was more difficult. The restaurants are for tourists, so the prices are quite “high” … Everything is still relatively cheap, but when you see the prices with local eyes $ 1 up you find it expensive !! Mentality of the traveler, not the tourist … there is a subtle difference between the two terms.

There are also cheap local options and we tried them, but they left a lot to be desired … very low quality and hygiene … We saw it clearly and ended up having dinner almost every night at the Gecko Hostel: for 59.000 Dongs ($ 2.6) we each had a sandwich with 5 ingredients to choose (cheese, chicken, lettuce, tomato, eggplant, pork …), chips and a beer … great! Another day we had dinner at Paradise Pizza, which has a very good rating on Trip Advisor … well, what do you want me to tell you … it was not the bomb … anyway …

The main attractions of the area are its caves. In any hostel you can make a pack of visits to several caves at a fairly high price (eg: Paradise cave + Dark cave for 1,300,000 Dongs ($ 57)), but you can also do everything on your own, renting a motorcycle and paying the tickets on the site, so you save a dough. We as always are saving what we can (in case it has not been clear with the grill that I just put with the restaurants) we decided to visit only the Paradise Cave, or Thieng Duong.

You can get there by motorcycle and there you pay 250,000 Dongs ($ 11) each for the entrance. We had been told that there are usually a lot of people, especially locals, except about 12-14 hours when they go to eat.

We who are always late to the sites, we stand at the box office at 2:30 pm, the cave closes at 4:00 pm … great, we have just enough time … From the ticket booth to the entrance of the cave you have a kick of almost 1 hour…!!! in slope … I set the pace to arrive with some time to see the cave and Mayra sweating and her face all red cursing me …

We finally arrived, and yes, there were many people … But as we were entering everyone left, and there came a time that we were the just …

The cave is magnificent, wonderful, a spectacle of nature, full of columns created by sedimentation, drop by drop, drawing concentric or fluted forms, overflowing volumes, it is a symphony of forms, built over centuries, grain by grain … The ideal is to be able to enjoy for hours, absorbed, oblivious to everything, while time is running, at a geological rhythm … Highly recommended.

In addition, the round trip motorcycle trail of the caves is also beautiful, between mountains, jungle, crossing villages, huge rivers, with fishing boats … a beautiful environment.

There are other caves to visit that we did not do: Phong Nha, which apparently is worth 100,000 Dongs and you can bathe, or Dark Cave you enter with a zip line, you kayak and you can take a mud bath … a bit touristy, but it paints very fun … And finally, the mother of the caves: Hang Son Doong, the largest cave in the world, discovered by a local farmer in 1991 and explored in 2009.

This cave has more than a year of waiting list and the entrance costs $ 3000. Although recently we met Nicolai in Hanoi, a Russian traveler of the most unique, who told us that if you pay something to the right place, he takes you to visit it. This cave is so big that it has its own jungle and its own microclimate … it must be really a show !!!! but … we’ll see her next time …

Our next stop was: Tam Coc, another natural paradise of beautiful scenery … So we loaded the Vietnamese Dynamite with our gear and we went to the place of the emerging mountains … Here we go Tam Coc !!!!