2016, back in Phong Nha again

Rice fields, greener than this time last year

It's the end of January already! Time has flown and we've been very busy since we flew back to Vietnam for another season working for Oxalis. We were only one week later arriving than last year but already the rice fields seemed much greener.

Laying planks for the digger

Life continues much as it did last year, more buildings going up on an almost daily basis but still much of it done by manual labour. The digger pictured above slowly came past our house, one man to drive it and another to move planks so there was no damage to the road. Very slow progress and would have taken hours to get to Phong Nha, normally a five minute bike ride.

Sunset from the roof

We missed the Hang Son Doong set up trip but have been on a two day trip to Tu Lan to check out the new four day tour, after that we did a two day trip to the neighbouring province (Quang Tri) to check out some caves for them as they are keen to increase tourism. (I'll do a separate blog post for both of these trips).

Hang Vom entrance

The owners of Paradise cave asked Howard and a bloke from Ho Chi Minh City to check our their area for a possible canopy walk, we joined them for something to do. Free food and a walk to the entrance to Hang Vom (the wet exit to Paradise cave), when we got there we went on a surprise kayak trip into the entrance.

Hairy tree!

After Hang Vom we walked back to the show cave (via the river) for lunch. I (Dave) went on the first Son Doong trip of the year, referred to as SD51 because it was a cancelled film trip and was only opened up to individual clients on Christmas day. The trip coincided with a record cold spell and was freezing! (I'll also post another blog entry to cover this).

Big tree, big vine

I've also been on two Hang Va trips, Ruth came on the first one which was a photography trip with Howard and was just for a single day. The second one was a "standard" trip with two clients (one of which was a reporter) and two people from the Marketing department. (yet another blog entry to write, will I ever catch up?) While we don't normally go on Hang Va trips, or the one, two and three day Tu Lan tours, the plan is for one of us to occasionally do these tours to help the guides improve their skills and knowledge. My next Hang Va tour is in two days time.

Gecko, frozen to our door

It's been really cold here, but now that it has warmed up a tad all the walls and floors inside our house are suffering from extreme condensation, everything is soaking wet. February brings Tet, the Vietnamese New Year which is a three to ten day eating and drinking fest. But before that are the end of year parties! So far we've been to the Son Doong porters party and the Oxalis staff party, eating, drinking and Karaoke, I need say no more!
It's now February the First so that's January covered! (apart from all the missing entries noted above).