Day 35! After a tiring drive from Khe Sanh to Phong Nha you’d think I’d relax for the day… well you’re not wrong BUT the day started with some beautiful and goofy adventures!

I woke up a few times throughout the night and ultimately decided to get out of bed around 9am.

My reacquainted friend Balint and I spoke the day before about going on some adventures on our bikes today and when I got up it sounded like he was raring to leave!

So I quickly got ready and had my free homestay breakfast of fried eggs and a baguette.

All it’s missing is some avocado and it’d feel like home! But I’m not sure I’ve seen any here yet…

Balint and I then hopped on our bikes and set off in a 40 minute ride to the Paradise Cave!

It was another cloudy morning but it made for a nice and cool drive!

I had been down this road already when I arrived into town, but Balint was enjoying the views for the first time! So we basked in them for a bit!

We arrived at the caves and paid 5,000 Dong to park our motorbikes. Then paid 250,000 Dong to enter the park. Not the cheapest outing but for $10 I was wildly impressed!

There’s about a 2 kilometer walk to the entrance of the cave and part of it is a very steep ramp to the top. I wasn’t aware of this and as a heads up for if you ever come here, it’s not the easiest walk.

Once you get to the top you’re met with an ominous entrance into the mouth of the cave.

I will say, I had my doubts about going to a cave. After my experience in Pai, Thailand my expectations were very low. But this cave blew my socks off!

I have never seen stalactite and stalagmite formations like this before! The amount of time it would take for these to form is insane!

On top of that there were so many unique formations and beautiful pools of water reflecting the impressive formations!

The cave was only found in 2005 and is larger and apparently more spectacular than the more popular Phong Nha cave! So I’m glad I went to this one instead!

After a nice hour in the caves it was time to head out to our next activity for the day. I didn’t really know about this one until I met some people yesterday (the couple from Canada). But they said it was a must go to and that I shouldn’t do any research.

So Balint and I head out for the Phong Nha “Duck Stop.”

The ride took around 50 minutes from the cave and by this time the clouds were gone and the sunny blue skies were out!

The ride also went down some sketchy backroads that felt like off-roading but we managed to make it to the duck stop in one piece.

When we arrived we were greeted by some very friendly locals who run the stop and they gave us peanuts and a guide telling us about the experience.

After we confirmed we were willing to pay 100,000 Dong for something we knew nothing about… we strapped on some fancy shoes and rice hats and made our way to meet some ducks!

If you plan on going to Phong Nha ever in your life… please do not spoil this experience and close your eyes and scroll past this all. This experience was made 100x better by not knowing anything before hand.

Okay… you’ve been warned! Prepare for cuteness overload!

There’s a couple of other videos that won’t upload as of right now! But I’ll get them uploaded asap!

This was one of the goofiest experiences I’ve ever been a part of. I’ve never been close to ducks let alone a hundred of them!

They were all very excited to eat and were waddling around, going in between our legs, stepping on our feet, and just running a muck!

We even got to be the leader of the ducks and they waddled after us as we tossed food for them.

We fed them from our hands and even held one at one point which was a bit odd.

They would get my anklets confused with food and try to nibble at them and would also just randomly nip at our legs.

I honestly was laughing my butt off the entire time and the group we were with was doing the same! It was a bonding experience for us all and afterwards they made us pancakes which was a nice treat!

We had a fun group from all over the world that all bonded over some silly duck shenanigans. But after eating we split ways and headed back to the hostel to relax!

I ended up lying in bed for a while relaxing in the AC. But after a bit I made my way back to the hammocks to hang out with Balint some more where we chatted about our routes.

Dinner time rolled around and Balint and I wandered down the road to a place that was suggested to us by some people at the Duck Stop.

This restaurant was truly just in someone’s house! And for 75,000 Dong each we had 10 spring rolls and 2 massive bowls of noodle soup!

Balint and I ended up getting into some deep chats about life and US politics (kept very civil) and we enjoyed our amazing meal!

As I’ve said before, sometimes the best meals are in the most unlikely spots!

When we got back to the hostel there was a couple from London playing Uno by themselves. So I asked if they wanted more players and Balint and I joined them!

Our new friends are Harry and Grace and they were such a lovely couple! It instantly felt like we had all been friends for years and we were talking all about our lives and dove head first into our competitive trash talking!

They played Uno with some extra rules which spiced up the game a lot. And then they whipped out a game that I absolutely love, called Spot-It (called Dobble over seas).

By this point another traveler from Italy, Cris, joined us! We played many hands, chatting in between, and sharing lots of laughs over these silly games!

But the games weren’t over as I remembered I brought a special deck of cards along with me and busted out one of my new favorite games, Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza!

We ended up playing games all together for around 2 hours before Balint and I called it a night since we are heading out early!

It’s always sad meeting cool people and then never seeing them again. But it sounds like I’ll be running into Harry and Grace soon which I’m very much looking forward to.

I’ve enjoyed my stay in Phong Nha but there isn’t much else I want to do here. So tomorrow Balint and I will enjoy each other’s company some more and head to Nghe An where I’ll be meeting a friend from Ho Chi Minh who just bought a bike and wants to ride together!

Plenty of more fun adventures to come and I’m sure with Tet around the corner it’ll make for some interesting stories!

– Elie