Tu Lan four day caving expedition, my first of the year

Rat Cave, lunch spot

For various reasons we are both really busy working until at least the end of March so we are not going to have any real time away from Phong Nha until April at the earliest. Mostly this is due to the upcoming Vietnam caving expedition which is running from early March until mid April.

Gibbon Cave

Meanwhile I am filling in my time off by making a real attempt to master basic Vietnamese. Sounds simple right? After all, Vietnamese words only consist of one syllable. Not so, there are 22 initial consonants, 11 vowels (most of which sound similar) and a choice of either 8 final consonants (one of which is not an initial consonant!) or 2 final vowels (so a word can finish with three vowels in a row). Add to that 6 different tones, which means the same word can be said six different ways with six different meanings, and that's assuming you get the vowel sounds correct in the first place!

Moth

The Tu Lan four day caving expedition is a new route for this year, initially there was due to be a practice abseil down a waterfall on the second day (see earlier blog entry) but this has now been scrapped as it has been decided it's too dangerous and the day is long enough without an hour spent abseiling.

La Ken campsite

On day one there are two short dry caves (Rat Cave and Gibbon Cave) plus some jungle walking to get to a riverside camp at Hung (Hung means valley) Dung.

View of Hang Ken from the Tu Lan campsite, note the boats

Day two is a long trekking day, it took my tour (in good weather conditions) six hours to complete. There is just one short cave of about 100m, but plenty of hills to walk up and down, before the group arrives at another lovely riverside camp in the La Ken valley.

Hang Tu Lan, the dry bit

The third day starts off as another jungle walk over a few hills to arrive at the third and final campsite which is in Hung Tu Lan another idyllic riverside location, the best on the tour. We arrive in time for an early lunch before visiting two caves, first Hang Tu Lan and then Hang Ken.

New bridge at the Tu Lan campsite

Hang Tu Lan starts off as a beautiful dry cave, then there is the abseil into water and a boat ride out. It should then be possible to sail along the river to the camp but we didn't do this on our tour. Maybe next time? The final cave of the day is Hang Ken, visible from the campsite this is a 200m swim to a turning around point where it is possible to leave the water for a few pictures before the swim out. As it was cold, we used the boats although some brave customers opted to swim out.

Hang Kim, the dry bit

The final day sees the tour swimming through Hang Kim (about 450m of swimming in total), then a short swim through Hang Hung Ton before a final dry cave (Secret Cave) and the walk back to the Oxalis centre at Tan Hoa. Made slightly more interesting on this tour as the film crew of Titan were on location, not that we saw anything but minibuses and trucks.

Tan Hoa valley with film crew wagons

More Bats, Spiders, Cave Pearls and another cold Hang Son Doong tour.

Cave Pearls

For our second trip into Son Doong, Ruth and I were on tour together, which  was fortunate as it was another cold tour and sharing a tent made things slightly warmer.

Walking towards Doline 1

Assistant Guides taking a break

At the Bru Van Khieu village there was an interesting spider (to me), I've seen this type before but they have been much smaller. Note the finger in the picture for scale.

Is that a spider or is it a crab?

The conditions in the cave were clear as per the last trip so that meant the visibilty was good, even if there were no sunbeams.

Doline one and camp

Bags, ready to go

Apart from looking after clients, one of my main focuses for this tour was to take pictures of the cave pearls seen on the way so that we could compare with previous tours and with a final set which we will take at the end of the year.

Brains?

On the way to the Great Wall of Vietnam, we saw a bat low down on a wall.

Just hanging around

So I took a few pictures. It was probably sick as it didn't fly away.

Who are you calling big nose?

However it wasn't there when the next tour went in so it either got better or flew away and died elsewhere!

Doline One

The Dogs Bollocks, no really, that's what this formation is called!

As you can see from the pictures, cave pearls come in various shapes and sizes, from tiny to Grapefruit size, smooth to rough and knobbly.

Dinosaur Eggs?

Cave Potatoes

Cave Pearls, just standard ones

Cave Pearls with calcited bone

Bats in Hang Va and Nuoc Nut

This one measures up

On my previous tour, I counted the size (roughly) of the bat colony in Hang Va (there is well over 200). I mentioned this to Deb and she knows a "Batman" in Hanoi who she said would be interested.

What a beautiful nose

So, for my next tour, my mission was to obtain some pictures, fortunately the bats seem to roost very low so it is easy to get pictures.

Nuoc Nut

The next tour was only a few days later and the Guide hadn't been before so I went for both days.

Tree at the Hang Va campsite

An early start from Phong Nha, the mist was hanging low and gradually clearing as we left, a beautiful sight.

Misty Mountains

Nuoc Nut was first, and towards the sump there are also some bats which seem the same as the Hang Va  so I was able to get some pictures there, as well as some reasonable shots of the cave.

Nuoc Nut

Hang Va was next but this time there were fewer bats roosting, they were mostly flying about, but there were still some available for photography

Cave Cricket

As I was on a wild life photo mission I thought I would snap one of the white cave crickets in Va as well, there are lots about and the are quite big at about two centimetres long, with antenna that seem to reach nearly four centimetres extra.

Just hanging around

A Bicycle ride around the Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park

Park view

Oxalis have acquired some mountain bikes for their new Chay Lap Farmstay. This isn't open yet so we managed to borrow some for a while so we can travel a bit further afield (our normal shopping bikes do not have the gears or brakes for many of the hills around here!).

Ruth on an uphill section

The other day we went on a bike tour around the Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park. This is quite a hilly route and starts off along the same road as we travel on to get to Hang Va and Hang Son Doong.

Both of us at the road side

After we had gone through the National Park Barrier, there is a long uphill section, at the top are views down to the road as it passes beneath a large cliff.

Inside cave

This cliff was heavily bombed during the American war and at the foot are some small caves where the Vietnamese road repairers sheltered. We always pass this on the way to Hang Son Doong but have never stopped to look so it was interesting to be able to have a look inside.

Cave entrance

Inside it is quite small with probably just enough room for ten Vietnamese to huddle up together, as the cave it is not very deep it must have been worrying when bombs were being dropped. Beyond the cave it was a relatively gentle uphill ride to a road junction.

Road sign

At this junction, we turn left to go to Son Doong and Va, straight on leads to eight ladies cave (50 km further on is Laos), but we turned right towards Paradise Cave and Dark Cave.

View to Laos

The next section of our ride was a long and steep uphill so we were fortunate that it was not a hot and sunny day. After the uphill is a long descent to Paradise Cave (a show cave).

Ruth descending

Next comes Dark Cave, this is a tourist cave, sort of an adventure trip aimed at young people. There is a zipline to the cave entrance and a short canoe back there is a muddy section inside. The poster below shows the sort of person this is aimed at!

Dark Cave, what are they thinking of?

From Dark Cave the way on is more gentle downhill past the Nuoc Mooc springs. This is a big resurgence for a possible as yet undiscovered cave system.

Nouc Mooc sign

The way now levels out, passing through several small villages.

River view

The Catholic population is increasing fast in this area and new churches are popping up fast.

Another church on the way

The grave sites are very colourful and based on the more traditional style for this area, only with crosses stuck on top.

Graves

The final part of the ride is a rather dull and flat section along a busy road which is a shame as the rest of the ride was really enjoyable.

Final view towards Phong Nha

Hang Va and Nuoc Nut, The Movie

The end of year Son Doong Porter party and other pre-Tet parties

Hmmm, can we eat all this food ourselves?

It's official, party season has begun!

Ho Khanh does the speeches

A few days before the New Year (Tet) and the parties have begun, at the moment it is the end of year parties.

Cheers

First up was the Son Doong Porter Party, a riotous affair held at Mr Nguyen's house. All the usual ingredients of a successful Vietnamese party, food, drink, speeches, loud music and dancing.

Men dancing!

Two days later was the Oxalis end of year do, held at the Vung Hue Restaurant and included food, drink, speeches, loud music and (probably) dancing, but we left before this.

Wedding feast

After that I had a day of weddings (Ruth was in Son Doong), first was Lam, a guide with Oxalis, (We actually had an invite to this one!) and from there I was taken directly to a second wedding, this was of one of the cooks at Oxalis.

Jo arguing with the bride and groom

No Speeches at either but food, drink, loud music and dancing, lots of drink with various relatives of the happy couples.

Wedding feast, tastefully presented

The weather continues to be cold and damp, so Ruth had a few cold nights on her Hang Son Doong tour.

More food, can I fit any more in?

Finally, we had the opening night (even though it is not actually open yet!) of Bó'm's (I think that's close to how you spell his name, pronounced Burm) new restaurant and Homestay, he is one of the cooks on the Hang Son Doong tour. It is going to be a fantastic place, he's a good cook, the build quality is excellent and so are the views.

Here comes the rain again

It was Howard's birthday so a cake was provided, also Colin is leaving Phong Nha to go back to the UK so another cake was provided. It really is a hard life out here and very difficult not to loose weight so you have to eat plenty.

Testing out the restaurant food. It passed

We Westerners, and some of the more respected guests got to sit at the restaurant tables while most of the porters sat on the floor, which is normal for them and suits them fine.

Poters get to sit on the floor

Watto got into a bit of a drinking match with some of the porters, the porters won and he had to be helped home. So now we have one day off before the Tet celebrations begin.

Give me me that cake