This has been a long time coming. For those of you who don’t know about these caves or the Phong Nha National Park, this UNESCO World Heritage Site is home to the world’s biggest caves covering almost 900 square km and 300 caves (many of which are probably still undiscovered). And for those of you who don’t know me, I have a love affair with caves. To be honest, I can’t quite pinpoint exactly what it is that I love so much, but perhaps it’s the mystery of what’s inside and my curious nature that entices me to want to explore more.
While these caves were discovered in the 90s, they have only been open to the public for tourism for less than 10 years. To maintain preservation of the natural caves, the Vietnamese government has only given the rights for one company to operate tours for these caves (the best caves, IMO). After my experience, I highly recommend Oxalis Adventure Tours. They cost a pretty penny, but the quality of the tour, customer service, equipment provided, safety, amenities, food etc. was well worth it.
Now onto the good stuff.
I chose to go to Hang En cave. This is the 3rd largest cave in the world and by far one of the most picturesque. It’s a 2 day adventure that includes camping overnight inside the cave. Starting with a 4 hr trek in the jungle, we cross rivers up to our hips, fend off leeches, snakes and need to keep a look out for poison ivy. Other than that, it was like a walk in the park.. 🤪 but literally the most gorgeous lush walk you could imagine - like something out of Jurassic Park, minus the dinosaurs (fortunately) and Chris Pratt (unfortunately).
Then when you finally reach the entrance of the cave, you’re staring into a dark abyss and still don’t really understand the magnitude of the size of this cave until you step inside.
After a short dark walk through more rivers inside and a scramble up and over some sharp limestone, the light finally shines in to reveal a giant dome where our camp is so perfectly set up on a sandy beach across a small lake. It’s exactly how I pictured it and my heart can’t take it.
We’re actually standing inside the 3rd largest cave in the world and we get to sleep here tonight!!!!! The rest of the afternoon/evening was entirely free for us to chill, which included swimming in the lake, taking photos, playing games in the dark, sharing stories and just taking it all in. We made it. And we could sleep easy tonight.
The next morning was an early wake up call to an amazing breakfast of French toast and pancakes (serious compliments to the chef here). After breakfast we packed up and headed further into the cave to walk to the other end. I knew we were in for a treat. I could just feel it as we kept walking further and further into the darkness until we saw the light at the end of the tunnel.. we finally reached the other opening and it was even more impressive than yesterday’s view. Guys, I had found my new happy place. I just stood there in awe, completely speechless that this exists and I get to experience it IRL. Was feeling super grateful in that moment for the life that I get to live. Dreams really do come true. ✨
