I arrived from Hanoi to Dong Hoi at 5:30 in the morning on the sleeper train.
My first stop was at this restaurant just outside the train station. I enjoyed a breakfast of Banh mi with eggs and pate, along with Vietnamese coffee and a mango smoothie.
By the time I finished breakfast, it was daylight, so I walked through town to the bus station about a mile away. As soon as I arrived, a fellow showed me to the minibus that would take me to Phòng Nha, an hour away for 60,000 dong—about $2.
As we approach town, I saw that on my Goggle Map, my Tien’s Cozy Homestay was approaching, even though I wasn’t in town yet so I had the driver stop so I could take a short walk to the place.
Even though it was early morning, they took me in and showed me a room. I stayed in until my room was ready. My room was spacious and clean and cost just $11 per night which included a full breakfast. It even had a pool, but at temperatures between 55° and 60° with constant drizzle, swimming was not something I was going to do.
It was a half-hour walk into town to have dinner at the numerous restaurants in town along with a walk back in the dark and rain.
I was expecting a minibus to pick me up, but instead it was a tuk-tuk that ended up taking me to a central pick up spot for the minibus.
It was a half hour windy ride up a narrow mountain road to the Botanical Gardens and the Gio waterfall.
The Botanical Gardens also had a diorama of all the different wild animals they can be found in the forest, even though we didn’t see any on our walk through the forest to the waterfall.
We then drove an another half-hour along the mountain road to the Paradise Cave where we boarded some electric cars for a mile ride to the start of a half-hour trail up to the entrance of the cave.
This cave was huge as we descended down a switchback of staircases into the huge cavern filled with stalagtites, stalagmites and columns.
The cave walkway was about a mile long and they said the cave is about 31 km in length so we just saw a small portion of it.
After that, we headed down for our buffet lunch at the Dark Cave area.
Some of the passengers in our minivan, stayed for exploring that cave as well as do some zip lining while the rest of us headed back down to the Son River for a half-hour boat ride to the entrance of the Phòng Nha cave.
On our boat, the captain and mate were women who were having a struggle to get to the entrance of the cave because the water was so low.
I was told that we would often find women in these jobs because the men generally went overseas to work for a time and left the women behind to take care of their boats and provide more income for the families.
Once we got to the entrance, they turned off the engine and paddled their way through the cave and we enjoyed the views.
It felt like we went about a half a mile in, and then we disembarked from the boat and walked back to the entrance where we re-boarded the boat and returned to the Town center boat ramps and the end of the tour.
The homestay manager, Cuba, booked me to a 20 passenger VIP bus south to Hoi An at 8 AM for just 50,000 more dong-—$2— than a 40 passenger sleeper. Again, a tuk-tuk, picked me up and dropped me off at the central meeting spot.
Since I just had a carry-on, I didn’t have to check in any luggage. I was the first one on the bus, and sat on the first bed.
Afterwards, the staff kept having the people head to the back of the bus, so I felt pretty lucky getting this place. This bus was really nice with music playing on the TV, Wi-Fi, and a charging station. It even had a vibrating bed like the chairs you find at the nail salons in Seattle. The six hour bus ride was just $20.
During the 6-hour drive to Hoi An,. it was rainy outside, so I was glad I was just relaxing in the sleeper bus even though I generally thought sleeper buses were for night trips. The day trip was just as good.
When we pulled into the bus station in Hoi An, it was just less than a mile walk to the Golden Sun Hotel at the north of the Ancient Town where I stayed for nine days.
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