I decided to visit Phong Nha – Ke Bang National Park after the hotel receptionist in Hue confirmed to me that the one day trip to visit the cave is very easy and enough to see all interesting places. In the next morning, a minivan pick me up from my hotel at 6.30 and after many brief stops to collect more passengers from other hotels, the minivan were fully packed with both local and foreign tourists. I learnt that most of the passengers were not part of a tour group but just used minivan to Phong Nha town. The guide also informed me that I have to choose between Phong Nha Cave and Paradise Cave, the two caves that are accessible for normal tourists, as there was no time to see both caves. Most of members of the tour group immediately chose Paradise Cave for more adventurous experience offered, only a few including me chose Phong Nha Cave for relax river cruise tour. The minivan made two brief stops at the ruin of Our Lady of La Vang church where the Marian Apparition has been reported in 1798, and the Vauban styled Quang Tri Citadel where the Battles of Quang Tri during Vietnam War happened.

At noon the minivan reached the city of Phong Nha, the Karst landscape around the town is quite beautiful, after many stops in town to send passenger, we finally arrive at the Phong Nha cave tourist center to have lunch. After lunch, the Paradise Cave group left earlier by the same minivan to another park entrance, and the rest including me walked leisurely to nearby pier for the boat tour. On the boat we joined with a group of Vietnamese tourists, very fortunate as their English are very good and they helped us to translate what the boatwomen said. The view along the river is very lovely with beautiful mountain, small villages, a catholic church on the hill, playing and swimming kids in the river, cool breeze; perfect time to relax after long ride in small minivan. The boat stopped for a while at the beach next to the cave entrance to open the boat roof - simple design but great idea! Inside the cave, the boatwomen took me to see many normal appearances of Krastic caves, stalactites and stalagmites. They are nice to see but nothing really unique or special but at least I think this cave is much better than the new 7 wonders cave in Palawan, Philippines. The general shape of cave is triangular which is quite different from other subterranean river caves I have seen. The boat moored on the beach inside the cave and we walked back to the entrance. Along the way has some of the best dripstones of the cave, including sadly former travertine that dried up and has been used as steps to the exit. Outside the exit has a small uninteresting temple and small shops selling refreshments. I waited at the beach until the boatwomen called me to go back to tourist center. The total experience in Phong Nha Cave was around 2 hours, quite OK for me to see just one cave. I waited at the tourist center for minivan to Hue, after 30 minutes, the old minivan arrived with the group of tourists from Paradise Cave. The minivan was really dusty and the passengers looked really tried and one even injured, later the guide told me that the yesterday rain made the pathway to the cave muddy and slippery, very contrast to my group.

Then the minivan picked up more people in Phong Nha town and sending them in many towns along the road to Hue. Since the driver used the different main road from the morning in order to send passenger, the traffic were really bad, from 4 hours in the morning turned out to be almost 6 hours in the evening. There was no time to stop for dinner, and only one stop for toilet! At least the guide gave me a box of snack and I personally brought two bottles of water from my hotel, which tremendously saved me from the hellish long drive. I finally arrived at my hotel in Hue almost 9 PM at the time that I already lost any appetize or willingness to have dinner! Except the return trip, the tour is quite fine, but I would not recommend to do it except really lack of time. For its World Heritage Site value, for me it is too early to decide since Phong Nha cave is just a small tip of iceberg of the vast system of newly discovered gigantic caves in the national park including the famous Soon Dong Cave, the biggest cave in the world at this moment. The area still keep many secret and when those giant caves open to casual visitors without expensive tour organized, then I may come back again to see its real greatness.