More caves! Phong Nha National Park, in the middle of Vietnam, is home to several of the world's largest/longest caves. We saw some of both 55-km long Phong Nha Cave and 31-km long Paradise Cave. We're never ones to pass up a good cave.
We were surprised to go from perfect weather in the north to monsoon season in the middle. And not the nice, short monsoons we're used to. Serious rain for hours at a time. Turns out that when a country is the same length as the US west coast it's allowed to have different climates. Luckily the rains hadn't yet closed Phong Nha Cave, which is only accessible by boat, and a cave is the perfect place to spend a rainy day.
We hired a dragon boat to take us to Phong Nha Cave, where we transferred to a row boat to take us in. The rock formations are incredible, but if anything the cave is too brightly lit. It's not scary at all.
We liked Paradise Cave much, much better. For one, it's full of spooky ghosts!
It's also enormous, and looks like the batcave crossed with a Bond villain's lair. You descend through 100m-tall caverns and follow walkways past pools and giant rock formations that resemble broccoli explosions or Miyazaki landscapes. It's a "dry" cave, so no river or boats this time.
Much further away, but the rain stopped just long enough for us to take a scooter there. Road was once part of the Ho Chi Min Trail but now winds through dramatic park landscape.
-Peter
can you swim in the cave?
ReplyDeletei doubt it. Too scary
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