Phong Nha - Caves, Rivers and Hiking - In Photos

While the rest of the world is in various stages of lock-down due to Covid19, here in Vietnam we have been fortunate to have very few cases and to be able to carry on (mostly) as normal.  While international travel has not been possible, it has been a great opportunity to explore parts of Vietnam.  

At the end of November I went on a boys camping trip in Phong Nha.  This area is well known for the mountainous landscape and numerous caves.  Some of the caves have only been discovered in the last 10 to 20 years.  Son Doong Cave, which is the largest cave in the world, was only discovered in 2009. It therefore made sense that this camping trip would include caves and hiking.  We booked the Hang Tien 3 day / 2 night trip through Oxalis.  We stayed an extra night before the trip started and an extra night after the trip ended.  This gave us an opportunity to also explore a bit of Phong Nha town and surrounds.  

The rest of this blog post is mostly photos from that trip :)

The 5 of us that had travelled up from HCMC:  Thien, Ali, Bas, me, and Jon

And the rest of the tour group.  We were 11 in total.  
The Oxalis support team, which consisted of guides, porters and chefs, was about 12 in total.

The camp site on the 1st night

This is where you get clean at the end of the day.

Warming up at the end of day 1

And enjoying a feast

We spent a LOT of time in the rivers.  No point trying to stay dry

Stopping for coffee and a picnic lunch

And then back to the rivers

Camp at the end of day 2

And here we are at the end of three days of hiking

On our extra day in Phong Nha we took a boat to see the Phong Nha cave

This cave is quite different to the ones we had seen over the last 3 days.  This cave has boardwalks and lighting and is setup for mass tourism.  We were fortunate though to have this beautiful place to ourselves.

And then it was time to head home.

Thanks to Ali and Jon for contributing photos for this blog post.