Blogs from North Central Coast, Vietnam, Asia - page 4

I left Hue once again heading North and again via train in the economy section ($60,000VND) for a four hour journey to the coastal city of Dong Hoi which was to serve as my base for exploring Phong Nga-Ka Beng National Park. The National Park is about 50km outside of the city and is home to some massive limestone caverns and cave systems just recently discovered in the early 2000s. Some of the caves are so big they are still being mapped out and are not yet accessible to the public. The ones that are accessible are an incredible sight to behold. I've been in some caves in my day and "Paradise Cave" that I was to visit in the park was one of the most impressive I've seen. Ya, it's not true spelunking as their ... read more

We’re now in Dong Hoi, known among travelers mostly for its nearness to the Phong Nam caves in the national park. Yesterday, we visited Paradise Cave, which was amazing. I’ve attached photographs, but they don’t do the cave justice. It’s huge and better than any cave we’ve visited in the US (mostly commercial caves for me, but Tom’s been a caver for many years in the eastern US). No gaudy lights (Ruby Falls) either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thi%C3%AAn_%C4%90%C6%B0%E1%BB%9Dng_Cave If you’re really interested in caves, look up Son Doong cave on Google or check www.sondoongcave.org. It’s the largest cave in the world, in an area of at least 150 caves near the Vietnam-Laos border. It was discovered by a farmer in 1991, but he forgot where the entrance was and it wa... read more

We stopped for a couple of days at the Takalau Resort in the beach resort area of Phan Thiet (fan-teet) and Mui Ne. As we’d just managed to drag ourselves out of the resort on Phu Quoc Island, we needed a respite from a single day in chaotic Ho Chi Minh City. (Yeah, right …) Actually, the resort and these two towns showed us the real impact of European tourism on a “normal” Vietnamese town. We thought we were taking the easy, luxury way when we asked the hotel to have a driver meet us at the train station, but the guest relations lady, a Frenchwoman, was surprised that we had actually taken the Vietnamese train. When asked, she said that their guests arrive via luxury bus, and she herself had never taken the train though ... read more

Nous habitons la citadelle, une petite chambre à côté du siège du parti communiste du quartier. Super sécuritaire, mais réveil à 5.30h le matin quand il y a un groupe de femmes qui font de l'exercice devant notre maison, dans le parc.! Il faut s' habituer. Le marché du quartier est à côté, on peut donc acheter tous les matins nos fruits, crèmes brûlées et baguettes aux oeufs. Toute ville traversée par une rivière a un gros atout. Hué est traversée par la Rivière des parfums et en plus elle est sillonnée par de nombreux canaux. Très romantique. L'ancienne ville est formée par plusieurs carrés imbriqués l'un dans l'autre, formant les différentes classes de la citadelle. Chaque carré est délimité de l'autre par un canal, jusqu'au coeur de la citadelle, la "Cité rouge interdite", exactement comme ... read more

The night train to Hua was "interesting". This time we were in compartments for four, luckily for us we were with Dick and Sarah who we already knew, as there is no privacy within the compartment. Sarah and I went to the station shop to stock up on cold beers, and we broke out the cards, and had a laugh. We had to, the track here is narrower than in U.K, so it really was "shake, rattle and roll", and we had to hold onto the beers. We tested the door, and tested the lock, and the then found we were locked in. We shouted for help and eventually the train guard came and busted us out. Ken and Dick proceeded to fix the lock with a Swiss army penknife. The shaking was so bad it ... read more