A Giant Cave in Vietnam

Adventure, yeah. I guess that’s what you call it when everybody comes back alive.

– Mercedes Lackey

Heading South

After leaving my friend Ankit in Hanoi I took a trip south to central Vietnam.  Flying into Dong Hoi, I caught a pre-arranged shuttle to Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park.   Phong Nha’s claim to fame is its world record worthy cave system.  The largest cave in the world, Hang Son Doong, is here.  The third largest cave in the world, Hang En, is also here.  I came to Phong Nha to camp in Hang En.

Let me start by saying I almost didn’t do this particular nature adventure.  Vietnam a cheap country to visit. At first glance I gasped in indignation at the idea of paying the tour company, Oxalis Adventure Tours, over $300 for a two day hike with an overnight stay in a tent in a cave. This is hella expensive by budget-traveling and thrifty-living Cassie standards.   Furthermore, I’m on month nine of world exploration. At this point I’ve been unemployed for the better part of a year. My finances ain’t what they used to be.

I considered whether this trip would really be worth it (IT HAD BETTER BE WORTH IT). In the end…when will I ever again have the chance to sleep in a giant cave?  I closed my eyes and paid up.  This is a year of taking chances, living it up, and making poor financial decisions.  No looking back now.  I’ll borrow a friend’s Costco membership to load up on ramen when I get home.

The second reason I almost didn’t do this hike was due to a stomach ailment. Three days prior to my arrival in Phong Nha I suffered from a bought of food poisoning and toilet befriending in Hanoi.  While still sleeping next to toilets, I contacted the tour company asking if I could push this hike back a day to give me additional recovery time. Their response was a very polite NO.  Things were reserved, tickets were purchased, and porters were hired.  I was hiking the following Saturday or I was not hiking.  Also no refunds. Hope you feel better soon.

There’s nothing like the ingrained hate of wasting money to make my immune and digestive systems get on board. I didn’t feel 100% recovered upon arrival in Phong Nha, but I felt good enough to give it a go.

Ready for What’s to Come

I arrived in town on the outskirts of the park the night before the tour. My stomach was still feeling a bit jumpy. But I had successfully ceased expulsing the contents of my stomach and was enjoying a net positive intake of food. I figured this was good enough to handle an easy peasy 12 kilometers of hiking that day. Compared to other more challenging hikes I’ve done, this sounded totally do-able.

Fast forward to the orientation the next morning and a quick reality check by our Vietnamese hiking guide.   

“You’ll be hiking in jungle terrain.   You will get wet and stay wet.  The hike involves more than 30 river crossings up to waist deep.  You will be caked in mud. Look out for snakes. Each of you will get covered in leeches at one time or another. This is not a risk, it’s a guarantee. ”

He was not here to mess around.  It was very much a ‘Nice to meet you, and thanks for your money. This isn’t going to be a cake walk so back out now if you can’t handle it. I don’t want to hear any complaints.”

Nothing I was wearing was going to work – my hiking pants weren’t quick dry, my trail running shoes didn’t protect my ankles from leeches and would get ruined from the mud.  Myself and half the tour group had to buy better pants and borrow a pair canvas hiking shoes from the tour company.  Oxalis came fully ready for many an ill-prepared hiker. They had all the gear you could ever need and dozens of shoes cleaned and ready in every size imaginable.

I survived food poisoning and spent the last day and a half on a taxi, plane, and shuttle bus to get here in the middle of the night so I can blow my budget on this this overpriced camping experience.  I wasn’t about to be scared away….though I did give it a long moment of consideration.

Let’s do this.

Hitting the Trail

Quick summary of the tour group – there was about 10 of us. Myself, a young American investment banker from NYC on a similar job-quitting world-traveling journey. A young investment banking Indian couple (so many finance nerds in one place…), a middle aged Australian couple, and three Australian friends in grad school. We got along well. We had some good conversations. They are all friendly, good people. But I have zero recollection of anyone’s name.

I’m getting older and I meet a lot of new people these days. I need at least three days to remember anyone’s identity beyond nationality and age. You don’t know them anyway, so what does it matter.

Day one was not so bad.  My newly purchased Oxalis logo’d waterproof pants had a very ‘mom’ fit to them, but whatever because they kept me mostly dry.  This is super important.  Our tour guide wasn’t lying about the water or the mud.  We spent the first few hours slipping and sliding downhill on steep, muddy, jungly terrain. This was followed by several more hours of flat hiking along sludgy open plains and crossing rivers.

When we arrived at the first crossing the guides told us – “don’t even try to avoid getting wet, it’s useless.”  This is honest advice.  We crossed the river so many times I began wondering why we didn’t just canoe our way to the cave.  It was straight up Oregon Trail.  Forge a river, and count the people on the other side hoping Jamie Lyn didn’t get carried away in the current.

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Aside from the periodic rain and sludgy earth beneath our feet, the hike wasn’t so bad.  The route was mostly downhill or flat, and including our lunch break, only about four hours in total.  Speaking of which….at lunch it became apparent the guide was also not lying about the leeches.  The young woman half of the Indian couple was surprised to find an unnoticed streak of blood down her arm when we stopped to eat. Similarly, the male half of the Australian couple found a similar blood spot on his calf. The leeches were attacking full force.

The CAVE

Eventually we spotted the main opening of Hang En, and holy mother it’s massive.  Seeing it was like walking into a real life movie scene. I half expected king kong to bust out of the opening, beating his chest.

On arrival we had to cross (yet) another river to get to the opening.  Here the guides made us take off our shoes and lift up our socks and pant legs for yet another leech inspection.  The leeches live in the jungle, you see, and not in the water or the cave.  So if we happened to find one in our tent the coming night, it’s because we brought it in with us. 

As we flicked off the last few tiny black parasites and geared back up, we finally got a view of what all came from far and wide to see.  Hang En did not disappoint.  We climbed over a hill of a rock pile, making our way deeper through the entrance and soon found ourselves looking down on yet another river.  This river is too deep for forging, so the tour company has a large inflatable raft set up to carry our group of tourists, guides, and porters to the inner beach campsite. 

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I found the experience surreal.  Even as I climbed down the rocks and balanced my way on the raft for the short river crossing, the whole backdrop simply felt too monumentally vast to be reality.  How did I find my way into a CGI background?  The ceiling cannot be that high.  I cannot be looking out across a river inside a cave, at a campsite on a beach in a cave where I’m about to sleep tonight.  I felt insignificant and tiny, like I was seeing my shrinking self though the lends of a drone flying farther and farther overhead.  

I’ve seen a lot of unbelievable things this last year, and taken in a lot of breathtaking views of world wonders.  But this was nuts.

Cave Camping (and Hiking)

The tour company left the afternoon open.  We had time to swim in the icy river before it got dark (and boy, did it sure did get dark).  The camp cooks make an impressive seven course meal on a two burner propane stove which I would struggle to recreate in my own kitchen.  

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Once the sun went down, leaving us left in this pitch black closet of the earth, we ate dinner and played card games by the soft illumination of our headlamps. We all traded travel stories and life journeys.  Three Australian friends entertained themselves for a short while with a shadow puppet show on the rock wall.  And since there isn’t much to do after it gets dark in a giant cave….we all went to sleep just after 8pm. 

The next morning kicked off with a four kilometer hike through the cave.  This was another first for me.  Cave hiking.  The guide led us through the cavernous hallways to the other entrance of the cave (or exit, depending on your perspective), giving a rudimentary geology lesson along the way. 

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After a morning of cave exploration we had a quick lunch, followed by packing up camp. It was already time to leave. We still had to make the 12 km hike back to town. 

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It’s Only a Two Day Hike

For the first half of the afternoon, the hike back followed the same route as the previous day. The sky covered us in a misty rain for most of the afternoon, but all in all, it was an easy and pleasant hike.

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About mid-afternoon we diverted slightly to a different route, bringing us to the most difficult part of the two day hike. The final 3-4 kilometers uphill through the jungle back to the road where the bus was waiting. Here, the jungle foliage is dense, and the trail was steep.  This was also where the leeches lurked. 

Our guide gave a forewarning, “If you found leeches on you before, get ready for 10 times as many in this weather.  Tuck in your shirts so they don’t get on your stomach.  But don’t try to cover your arms with long sleeves and jackets.  It’s a very difficult trail. You’ll just overheat.” 

We all heard him, but coming off the casual stroll of the last few hours and the thrill of cave camping, his words didn’t hit home too hard. 

We learned quickly. 

Almost Done

The last few kilometers of the hike were super muddy, super slippery, and exhaustingly steep.  I took no pictures.  This last part consisted of less than two hours of hiking, but it was THE WORST.  We slid and fought our way up a slick and narrow path, dodging jungle foliage and climbing over countless fallen tree trunks along the way.  We stopped every 5-10 minutes to spray, kill, and flick a handful of leeches off each other. 

To the best of my recollection, I had never removed a leech from my body in my life prior to this hike.  I like the outdoors, but doing an activity involving such a blood sucking risk would elicit a strong ‘hell to the no’ response from me before this trip.  This changed very quickly. In the last two hours alone, I probably removed no less than 50 leeches from my pant legs, shoe laces, arms, stomach (how did they get in there, my shirt was tucked!!), hands, ankles, etc.  Pretty much everything but my face.  If I was squeamish about leeches before, that feeling left abruptly out of necessity. 

We all breathed a huge sigh of relief when we finally reached the top and spotted the bus waiting for us.  Before getting on board, the group had to do one last inspection.  We took off our shoes, removed every last sock, lifted every pant leg and shirt sleeve, and meticulously examined each other to make sure we didn’t bring any small friends with us on the bus.  We bagged our shoes so the tour office could wash them in soap to remove any hidden parasites. 

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Despite this process, when I returned to my hotel room later that night, I still found a few small blood stains on my rain jacket from a few squirmy friends that I obviously missed.  I spent half the night soaking myself and everything I wore or touched in scalding hot soapy water to kill any persistent unfortunate creature still clinging to me or my belongings.

In Conclusion….

I understand all this talk of leeches likely scared many readers away from an interest in repeating my experience.  Cave camping – sure it looks cool but I’m not down for nature attacking me and sucking my blood.

Well, woman up.  I don’t love leeches either, but I would still do this hike again, and recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat.  It was all worth it, a memory I will never forget, and a real highlight of my travels this year. Which is saying a lot. So don’t be a baby and miss out on this or any other life experience that’s possibly a little gross but statistically unlikely to kill you.

Happy Traveling. 🙂