June 8 Phong Nha Caves (Katie)

On Tuesday we traveled three hours north of Dong Ha to the magnificent Phong Nha cave in the Annamite Mountains. They weren't fully explored until very recently, but during the Vietnam War, they were used extensively by the North Vietnamese Army as a hospital, weapons arsenal, and hide-out. It's the longest river cave in the world, going all the way into Laos. At first, the Vietnamese allowed visitors much freedom in exploring the caves and the rest of the national park. However, that freedom has been limited now to preserve the cave, as the presence of humans is very detrimental to any ecosystem and changes it drastically. Oil from people touching the stalactites and stalagmites, an drastic increase in carbon dioxide, artificial lighting, noise, and so on.

A boat carried us over two miles back to the first cave entrance. The ride itself was gorgeous and we admired the thick, lush forests on the mountainside and village people from the river. Rowing into the wide mouth of the cave, with hundreds of bats flitting above us, we floated a ways inside then were dropped us off to explore a portion of the cave on foot. From there, we hiked up (and up and up) the mountain-side to another cave called Tien Son. This was well worth the climb, as few visitors were willing to make the trek, so it was quiet and peaceful in the cave and, in our opinion, was even more beautiful than the main cave below.

It's quite hard to capture the cave's size, beauty, and detail in photos... but below are some of our attempts.




















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