Another early morning start, with a 6.30am wake up call and a day trip to Phong Nha National Park to explore the famous Paradise & Phong Nha caves.

Leaving the serene surroundings of the beautiful Melia hotel was a wrench, but thankfully we were picked up in an air conditioned minibus and were soon chatting to the other members of our group, from the US, Italy and Vietnam.

It looks like we picked a good day to go caving, as it was a cooler and slightly wet start to the morning, with our rain coats packed and ready for their first outing in a good while.

After an hour or so drive, we arrived at the entry to the national park and grabbed a buggy for a 2k ride up the mountain, before a final hike up 500 steps to the entry point to Paradise Cave.

This cave is 31 km long, longer than the Phong Nha Cave  which had been considered the longest cave in the national park. The height can reach to 72 m and 150 m wide

Thiên Đường Cave, its formal name, is located 350 metres above sea level, near the west branch of the Ho Chi Minh Highway. The cave was only discovered relatively recently by a local man in 2005.

The cave was explored by British Cave Research Association in 2005, who mapped out the whole 31 km, we however got to walk only the first 3 km, before circling back.

The size and majesty of the cave is hard to describe, such is the scale. We witnessed so many stalactites and stalagmites that had been formed over millions of years just blows your mind.

As today was midweek and slightly wet, the numbers inside the cave were modest and only a few hundred, meaning we had plenty of opportunity to stop and gaze up at the incredible shapes that have been formed by water penetration over time .

We spent almost 2hrs underground stopping every few metres to take in another sight of rock formations that looked like they’d been created on a film set, rather than by nature such were their unusual form and appearance.

We both agreed that the Paradise Cave is the most spectacular underground spectacle either of us have ever witnessed.

The shapes coming down from the roof of the cave, are a product of the perpetual flooding that occurs every Sept/October when the cave system becomes inaccessible, such is the raised water levels.

There were a number of stalactites and stalagmites that were meeting up in the middle and exceeded 30-40 metres in height, which had taken over 2-3 million years to be formed. Some of the shapes formed have been christened with amusing names/tags. There is one that looks like Garfield and another Queen Victoria!

We need to apologise for going a little crazy with the endless photos inside the cave, but it was hard to decide what to photo and what to just put to memory and carry on walking.

The colours formed are as a result of the moss that has grown in the caves since they were discovered and illuminated, prior to that they were all shiny and lacking any plant growth due to the constant darkness.

Walking around the cave was such a pleasure and has certainly got us excited to see more of the cave systems that exist elsewhere amongst the Vietnamese mountain range.

At times it felt that some alternative universe or you were on the moon, such was the unusual landscape and rock formations.

The next few photos are a selection of some of the specific features that were mapped out along the cave walk and caught our eye. Our guide was around to explain some of the formations, but sadly not all, such were the number.

After a very enjoyable couple of hours we came back up to the surface and headed for a well earned lunch at the nearby Phong Nha caves, our next destination for the afternoon.

Our second trip was a little less strenuous, with a boat trip along the river to the entrance to the Phong Nha cave.

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The Phong Nha cave is accessed from the river and is over 7.8km long and contains 14 grottoes, as well as a 14km underground river. While local cave experts shave surveyed 44.5km of passages, as tourists we were only able to explore the first 1.5km.

Travelling into the cave by boat was somewhat surreal and made us feel like proper explorers, ignoring of course the other boats that were travelling along the river course like us…!!!

The dragon boats were able to navigate their way into the narrow caves steered believe it or not by young teenagers who were helping out during their school holidays.

Like in the paradise cave, the rock formations were other worldly with the scale of the openings being 50 metres in height in certain sections.

We came across a group of kayakers who had been able to stop at an internal beach and enter into a cave passage that seemed to go into the far distance with no ending.

After venturing to the furthest point, we circled back and departed from the boat to get a closer look at some of the larger cave formations and signs of occupation from the time of the Vietnam War, when the cave became a makeshift hospital for the Viet Cong.

We continued to wander the path of the caves for the next 45mins with open mouths as we saw more magnificent rock formations that defied gravity.

Eventually we found our way back to the entrance to the cave and watched the empty ‘gondolas’ below returning up river where we picked up our rides again.

Time to return to our dragon boat and the return journey up the river.

We were soon back to our minibus and the end of our tour and returned to Dong Hoi around 5.30pm after a full day of cave exploration. We really enjoyed the trip and would definitely recommend it.

After a quick stop back at the hotel, we headed out again for a coffee and cake, departing from the main doors of the Melia hotel, as a grand an entrance as you’ll ever see.

Next door to our hotel was a fantastic coffee shop, which we choose to ignore (!) and instead walked along the riverfront for 30mins before realising that there wasn’t anywhere as good, so we returned and treated ourselves to a coffee & cake. We did get a complimentary tea, which oddly tasted like an ashtray, not something we’d recommend…!

Walking around the nearby shopping mall we came across a store selling electric cars from the main Vietnamese car manufacturer where a new model will set you back $100k – some people are doing well here.

Tomorrow we have a day in the city, exploring the citadel and if the weather holds up a trip to the beach.