12.03 Day 57 Hue to Phong Nha
Tuesday 12th March - Hue - Phong Nha (Day 57)
Alarms off at 6:30am to get up, eat a patchwork of breakfast in the room, shower, pack bags and check out, the owners sending us off with a kind farewell, including two china figurines for the kids of a traditional vietnamese women - I wonder how long they will survive.
Our upcoming bus ride I’d managed to organise directly with the bus company, bypassing the myriad of agencies making up new prices on the spot. Thankfully, the whatsapp arranged bus shows, a minibus already containing a Taiwanese family of four (the grandparents coughing enough to make me dig out my mask), and a retired couple from Norwich spending most of their retirement travelling.
There is absolutely no communication from the driver as we exit the town, the buildings quickly turning to rice fields with occasional buffalo. He is a man in a hurry and must be on his 3rd or 4th horn for all the use it gets to ‘encourage’ those pesky mopeds to move to the side of the road.
In the end, the van has decided it’s not happy, causing us to stop suddenly on the side of a busy road, lorries thundering past. I’m not a mechanic, but pouring four bottles of water onto the engine and then most of it seemingly reappearing on the road beneath, I don’t think is a good sign. Several phone calls and bottles of water later, the driver decides to push through. There is still no respite to the sense of urgency, re-overtaking the lorries again.
In the end we made it to Phong Nha after 4.5hrs, stepping out into this one street town in much warmer and drier conditions. Our homestay is just a few minutes walk away, where the owner, Dat, greets us with a smile he’s wearing everytime he sees anyone. Walking to our 2nd floor room we pass the pool on the 1st floor, which we only delay jumping into for the time it takes to eat a roadside Banh Mi from a bakery a few doors away. The pool is not heated, though the only give away is the colour of the kids lips after they spend a chunk of time in there.
Whilst we know this area is famed for its caves we didn’t appreciate there would be rock karsts jutting out the ground quite so close to us - in every direction there are large hills looming - it’s all very picturesque.
Whilst the kids put their heads down for school work, I investigate the boats to Phong Nha Cave and dinner options along the river, before Kate and I sip on a cider and beer poolside while Seb is back in the pool, jumping repeatedly with a Canadian french speaking girl named Matilde. The older brother Jules jumped in, screamed the place down and promptly got out “c’est tres froid, c’est tres froid”. These hours by the pool with background views again afforded by the slower travel and less need to “do” the attractions the moment we arrive.
Dinner by the river at one of the many quiet restaurants, the time between ordering and receiving food as usual filled with card games. Sienna and Seb are persuaded to not start patting the dog that comes and lies next to us despite their pleas.