Advertisement
Published: November 27th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Phong Nha Farmstay
The view just on the way into the farmstay - rice paddies and farmland. The sleeper buses in Viet Nam are actually not too bad, depending on what type of bus you get and how far away from the toilet you sit. Thankfully I had a sleeper seat in the middle on the ground floor, which meant I did not have to endure the pungent aroma of strangers poop, nor endure the crumple zone of the bus, more frequently used in Viet Nam than anywhere else I have been as the bus drivers are a bunch of flagrant lunatics with no awareness of traffic laws (I heard one story from a guy I met about two buses overtaking each other, both on the wrong side of the road).
So, once settled I tucked myself in for the night, spooning my bag to fend of thieving little shits (again a common problem on night buses), whacked in the ear plugs and pulled over the eye mask. Seven and a half hours later I was rudely and rather violently awoken by the bus driving screaming in my face “get off, get off now!” and then rather unceremoniously bundled off the bus. I had barely set one foot on the ground when a gaggle of motor-taxi men
were breathing and spitting in my face trying to secure the only early morning ride to an as yet unknown destination. Once I had fended them off (‘di di’ is a good but rather rude phrase meaning ‘go away)’and checked Mayra was also awake and OK, we settled in over the road for an early morning coffee while our private car made it’s away over to pick us up.
En route we also picked up a Dutch couple to half the cab fare (score) and then we were on the way to Phong Nha. I’d learnt by now that this was the middle of Viet Nam’s rainy season, but this year was particularly bad and we were lucky that the car had made it out. The hour long trip West to Phong Nha was a delight. Lush paddy fields and rolling country side to accompany the dirt tracks for roads.
Phong Nha itself is a small town and the place we were staying was a little outside in a farmstay (
http://phong-nha-cave.com/). At the farmstay are a series of private rooms and a dorm – the latter being the cheapest and so clearly the right option for a travelers
Ke Bang National Park.
The entrance to the National Park, just by Phong Nha village. budget. The place was very quaint and well kitted out. Ben, an Australian who moved to Viet Nam over 4 years earlier is married to Bich, a Vietnamese. Together they have a young baby boy called Ben, who was very social and seemed to be very familiar with strangers and eager to play. The farmstay itself overlooks a large series of rolling rice paddies and in the distance you can see the mountains of the surrounding area. It also employs only local people to Phong Nha and both Ben and Bich and their colleagues from local travel companies encourage the local people to help protect the land.
At the farmstay I met five American girls (Alyse, Holly, Britney, Ashley and Emily) who work in Bangkok teaching English. It was still very early so after breakfast, a quick change and everyone was up for a tour of the area before the rain got too heavy. Ben arranged for us to take a day trip in a few old American jeeps (used in the Viet Nam war) around Phong Nha and the Ke Bang National Park. The park requires a special permit to access and joins part of the Ho Chi
Minh trail that was extensively bombed by the Americans during the Viet Nam war. B52 bombers used to fly through the mountain ranges dropping bunker busters to dislodge rock from the mountain side to bury the trail and also try to block or destroy small cave complexes that the Viet Cong would hide in. All around the area leading up to Phong Nha you can see circular formations in the rice paddies, which are old bomb craters, still very evident today.
After a trip to a war memorial that remembered the lost loves of a number of locals and others from surrounding provinces whom had died in the war effort we had lunch in the National Park and took a trip to an eco-trail near the Laos border. The vegetation was a thick lush green and the rivers, very rapid, owing to the heavy rainfall. It was a very good day out and the drive back through a series of ethnic minority villages was very rewarding as the young children who were playing in their homes and the streets came running out after the jeeps waving as we passed through. That night we all decided to treat ourselves to
some very well earned drinks and a night swim in the pool out back, in the middle of a rain storm no less.
The next day we were greeted to a torrent of rain that had poured through the night and continued for the next 3 days. The water levels were rising at a rate of a foot an hour and the rice paddies soon became unrecognisable and slowly turned into a lake covering the entire area (literally miles upon miles of landscape). As there was not much to do other than relax, that’s exactly what we did – a few films (Apocalypse Now, very appropriate and Old School to lighten the mood).
When the rain subsided for a few hours we took a walk around Phong Nha and met some locals who invited us in, even though they spoke no English. Back at the farmstay Ben and Elaine, the English couple I had met in Hanoi had arrived and the rugby was due to start, so there was not much else to do other than get back on it!
Later in the evening I also met an Australian girl called Amie who was living in Hue
Ke Bang National Park
The Laos border, 15km away. doing voluntary work (Radiography at Hue hospital). She was only in Phong Nha for the weekend and was supposed to be back in work on Monday. As it turned out the rain worsened and the flood water started to creep over the main wall into the farmstay complex. It became time to leave and we had to wade out to the car waiting on the main road – quite eventful indeed as any longer and I would have been swimming!
The car took Amie and I to Dong Hoi where we boarded the train for Hue. The floodwater was incredible and it was very apparent that people’s livelihoods were at risk as the water rose steadily higher covering farm land, roads and then crept into people’s homes. Sure enough, the railway succumbed and the train stopped in a place called Dong Ha, about two hours outside of Hue. There was no hope of moving, at least for a few days until the rain subsided so we abandoned ship, so to speak, taking in tow a nice Australian couple called Jill and Stuart who also did not fancy a nights kip on a crowded and very sweaty Vietnamese train. Having
The Eco Trail
In Ke Bang National Park, the Eco trail was actually flooded but we still managed to walk down to the river. secured some cheap accommodation for the night and a few drinks and a slap up feed, we settled in.
The next day the rain was still going, but not as heavy so we took a trip into Dong Ha and went to a place called Tam’s Café, a nice little establishment run by the deaf and the blind. The coffee there is reputedly the best in Viet Nam… the food was pretty good too. Thankfully whilst there we met an American guy who was friends with Tam, the owner of the café, and we managed to secure a taxi ride to Hue with Tam’s brother, rather conveniently!
The trip to Hue was much the same, flooded landscape through the demilitarised zone and people’s homes in almost ruin, but this did not seem to affect the locals. The Vietnamese people seem to me to be a very positive and resourceful people. After a thousand years of hardship it really does show through as even though people’s livelihoods were in tatters, rather than sit and moan about it like the Brits, they all were going fishing instead, taking advantage of the high floodwaters! Thankfully the road was not too bad
Spider!
A nice companion whilst in the bathroom. and we made it to Hue in good time.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.11s; Tpl: 0.025s; cc: 16; qc: 55; dbt: 0.0563s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb