Ah, this really is a find! And then to realize that I had thought of skipping it – another cave, and a bit out of the way. Directions in the Lonely Planet are made more difficult than they really are however: Phong Nha is an easy day trip from Hué. Several days a week there are tours organized by the travellers cafés. I wanted to go on another day, so I rented a car + driver for myself. It takes about 3.5 hours to get there, most of it via a shiny and quiet asphalt road that crosses sections of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Traces of the Vietnam War are also clearly visible at the entrance of the Phong Nha cave: crater holes that have turned into small ponds. From above you’ll notice that the landscape is dotted with them. The Phong Nha cave was used as an important Northern base during the war. A trip into the cave is all organized from the town of Son Trach. At the ticket office, you have to pay the entrance fee to the caves (Phong Nha and the adjoining Tien Son), and pay for the boat. As I was on my own and there weren’t many other people around to share with, I had my own boat.

A couple speaking only Vietnamese manned this small wooden ship. They used the motor to get from Song Trach to the entrance of the cave (about 20 minutes). The characteristic karst landscape already is pretty spectacular here: think of Ha Long Bay without the bay, or Yangshuo along the Li River. 

The underground boat trip finishes at a large series of caves, where you step onto a beach. Then you have to walk out of it (the boat carries on to a pier outside, I thought I had gathered this from my Vietnamese-speaking boatman, but I checked with some Vietnamese tourists to make sure). Outside awaits a very long flight of stairs that takes you to Tien Son cave. You have to pay for it separately at Son Trach, but there was nobody around to check the ticket.

Actually, I was the only one in the cave. It was a bit scary, to be honest – it is a large cave, typical dripping stone, quite wet and slippery. I was thinking about what would happen if I would fall out there and break my ankle. Would some official at the end of the do a final round of the cave to see if nobody/nothing was left behind before closing up? Or would they just ask the gossiping sales ladies at the entrance if someone was still there (and they obviously would not have paid attention or could not care less). Fortunately, I came out unharmed and took my boat back to Son Trach. The total experience at the caves and the river took over 3 hours. For me personally, it was a much more rewarding experience than Ha Long Bay - the boats are smaller, it's quieter, and you get a more close-up experience.