Phong Nha Farmstay and Cave

Phong Nha, a small village on the banks of the Son River, is 340 km north of Hoi An and 500 km south of Hanoi. We came by car via Hue (we overnighted in Hue to break up the trip).

We are staying at Phong Cha Farmstay – which is nestled in the rural countryside on the outskirts of Phong Nha. The Farmstay is rustic, eclectic and oh so unique. As we come out of our room, we look onto the rice paddies. With the rooms being small and basic, the guests congregate in the central lounge areas. It is cooler so they have a roaring fire in the lounges which adds to the ambience. Dinner is in a rustic outside area with views of the rice paddies. They have outdoor movies a few times a week (Tracie May you would love this) as well as a traditional family style dinner. The food has been very good. Tony, the farm stay manager, said they use to have just “backpacker” food, but 6 months ago they had a master chef come in and train their staff.

We bicycled to Phong Nha which is normally 9km ride from the farm stay. It is a straightforward route, but somehow we managed to make a wrong turn which added another 5 km to our route. The bikes and our recovering monkey bums were not meant for the distance but we made it….and we saw so much along the way.

The Phong Nha caves, in the Karst Mountains, were the first caves in the area opened to tourists in 1997. During the Vietnam war the cave was used during the day to hide the floating bridges that the Vietnamese used to move supplies along the Ho Chi Minh trail. This area, which is the narrowest part of Vietnam, was the most bombed during the war as the US troops tried to stop supplies. We hooked up with 9 other people in the Cave Ticket line to take a dragon boat to the Phong Nha caves. Our boat mates were “30-somethings”, from 3 different countries, so it was fun to hear about their travels.

Wonderful day exploring the caves – we went part of the way by boat, and they then dropped us off and we walked back.