Today was what I was most excited about while trip-planning – swimming in caves, hiking through jungle & being out in remote countryside – the perfect package 🙂  We woke up early and had a huge breakfast before being picked up by Oxalis.  They took us to their office for payment, tour briefing and getting into our Vietnamese army boots.  Then we were off.

About 1.5 hrs later, we arrived at Tan Hao Village.  Kien (our guide) told us that the dialect in this village is quite different and he can only understand a bit.  What’s very interesting is that there are no written words.  The views by this point were magnificent with incredible 360º views.

We began our trek into the peanut & buffalo fields towards the Rao Nan River.  I am now falling more and more in love with the countryside of Vietnam.  Phong Nha is so beautiful and peaceful.  We crossed the river and walked through corn fields before we got to the tougher portion of our trek.  We scaled large rocks around a mountain and into Hung Ton Valley.  And when we made it around, we had to descend in similar terrain.  The jungle was all around us and it was nice to only be a small group of 6.  We climbed up to the entrance of Hung Ton Cave (one of many caves in the Tulan system).

We learned that limestone is formed from millions of years of fossils being compressed.  The caves in Vietnam have been estimated to be over 400 million years old.  We put on our helmets and headlamps and marched on.  We saw a snail fossil and ‘cave pearls’ (formed by water droplets over a long time).  They looked like perfectly formed and smooth pearls and eggs.  We climbed up and around large formations and finally hit a pool of water, and swam a short distance before we reached To Mo Valley.

It was like walking into a secret, magical place.  A little valley surrounded by jungle and a waterfall.  This was where we stopped for our picnic lunch.  We had a huge spread of BBQ pork, spring rolls, baguettes, & oreos (of course).  We even had freshly made coffee  & tea.  It is a beautiful surprise tucked away between caves.

After lunch, we swam to another cave (Kim Cave).  After a short walk, we reached a 5m drop and got strapped in for the climb down the long wooden ladder.  From there, it was about 2 long swims before we reached the end of the cave.

We climbed up and over more rocks/formations between swims.  As we were swimming, bats were flying very low, zipping right around us.  It was quite an experience.  When we reached the other end of the cave, there was an opening to the jungle outside and it was gorgeous.  We sat there and enjoyed it for a while before retracing our steps/strokes back to To Mo Valley, back through Hung Ton Cave, up the ladder and back out and around the mountain, through the fields and back into the village.

During our walk back, we enjoyed incredible sunset views over the limestone formations.  We also saw buffalo cooling off in their custom made pools (dug out by themselves).  A herd of cattle walked right past us and was amazing to see.  We all gratefully cooled off with huge swigs of cold bia.  On our way back, we drove by “Buffalo City” (little huts built for the buffalo), through Tan Hao Village and back to the Farmstay.  It was almost 8pm before we made it back.  What an unforgettable day!!! 🙂

You can go back to my main page about Son Trach Region to find more details about this area.

p.s. In case you are interested, the tour we took was the “Tulan 1-Day Jungle & Cave Experience”