Spelunking in Phong Nha

I spent 2 nights in Hué after leaving Da Nang...didn't love it there, but on the plus side, I made friends with two really hilarious girls from Hong Kong, and we had a lot of fun together!

After the shenanigans in Hué, I caught a bus packed to bursting with young backpackers to the now-famous village of Phong Nha, on the outskirts of the National Park. The main draw there is the numerous amazing caves in the area, including Son Doong,the newly-discovered largest cave in the world! Since I don't have $3,000 to spare for that, I decided to take a much smaller tour to see 2 other popular caves: Paradise Cave, and the Dark Cave. It was a lot pricier than I cared to pay, but figured it was my only chance to see these places, and they were highly recommended by other travelers.

Lucky for me, in the evening I ran into a guy I had previously met in Saigon, and he had his own motorbike...and he invited me to come along on his self-guided tour the next morning! It took less than .5 seconds for me to agree to this. Motorbiking > organized tour buses any and every day!

We sped off down the country roads early the next morning, and I could barely wipe the stupid grin off my face as I watched the scenes go by: the lush green countryside dotted with cows, the striking karst mountains wreathed in morning mist, and the friendly locals who smiled at us from their own motorbikes.

I had heard a lot of talk about Paradise Cave, so my expectations were pretty high. I had also been told that it is important to get there as early as possible, before the tourist crowds (the same crowd I would have been a part of, had fate and my new friend not smiled on me). Our timing was immpeccable. We were the first to enter, followed soon after by a solo traveler with similar aspirations for solitary sightseeing! The three of us shared some smug appreciation of the peace and quiet, which bonded us for the rest of the day, actually.

Paradise Cave did not disappoint. It was absolutely incredible! I couldn't believe how big it was...each time I thought it was coming to an end, we would round a corner and there would be more amazing formations! The ceiling soared above us, and the cave actually goes on for 31km, though only about 1 km is open to public viewing, unless you pay for a special tour that will take you further. It is lit with spotlights to show off the best of the stalctites and stalgmites, and little rivers coursing through.

My camera doesn't do so well in the dim light, so its difficult to capture the magnitude of the cavern, and my photos don't do it justice. But you can get an idea of some of the cooler formations! It was amazing to be there with no one else around, just taking in the reverent silence and calm.

After taking our time, we literally met the swarms of chattering, selfie-stick-happy tourists being herded into the mouth of the cave by their microphone-toting tour guides as we stepped out. We all shared a look of relief, and gratititude for our luck.

Next, we hopped back on the bikes and made our way to the much more developed Dark Cave, which involved ziplining across the lake, swimming to the mouth of the cave, scrambling in bare feet through the sliippery mud inside to get to a huge mud bath! It was the trippiest sensation! The mud was thin enough to wade through, but thick enough that it felt like quicksand, and you could easily sit or lay down in it and simply be suspended there! We were in a group of about 10, and it was quite funny to goof around in there- no photos unfortunately, as it was not a safe place for cameras!

After our mud bath, there was more swimming in the lake, and finished off with a quick kayak paddle, and a short zipline with a drop into the lake to top it all off. It was all good fun, and after cleaning up we ate a tasty lunch at the restaurant on-site, and then began the drive back to the village.

Our final stop of the day was the office to get a ticket to Phong Nha Caves, which can only be reached by hiring a boat to get you there and take you through, since a river runs through the cave. This was highly enjoyable, and felt like a completely different experience from either of the two previous caves.

It was also hilarious because our 14-passenger boat carried 11 Vietnamese visitors who were quite entertained by having us three foreigners on board. They asked us a lot of questions in Vietnamese that we simply had no way of understanding, and once we were in the caves it became a full-on photoshoot. I was hugged, my hand was held, and I was required to pose for many, many photos with quite a few different people! The three of us whities were all laughing SO hard because we just felt ridiculous! But I guess we were a real novelty, and they were looking at the photos all the way home, and asking me if I had babies and was married, and if one of the guys was my boyfriend. We were a real source of entertainment!

All good things come to an end, however, and after dinner I caught the 12 hour night bus to Hanoi...onwards to the next adventure! But I will always have the fond memories of a great day motorbiking in Phong Nha!

Montparnasse & The Paris Catacombs

(Is it just me, or does that sound like an Indie band name?)

Our third day in Paris consisted of 2 parts: a morning spent in Montparnasse, and the rest of it on a train heading away from the city.

We had read about the Catacombs in our travel guide, "Let's Go: Europe!", and had heard a general buzz that they were an interesting thing to visit. From what I could tell, they were creepy underground tunnels with lots of history. And visiting a new part of Paris would no doubt be interesting, since each neighborhood seemed to have a unique flavor all its own!

Montparnasse didn't disappoint, and neither did the catacombs.

We thought we had arrived early (probably 9AM-ish) so that we would be one of the first in line to get in, but there was already a huge trail of people wrapped around the little park in which the catacomb entrance stood.
We quickly got in line, and sighed at the thought of how long we would have to wait. Luckily, we met a very entertaining Londoner in line ahead of us, so we passed the time chatting with him and comparing toenails (don't ask, it won't make sense).

Warning: grimness and morbidity ahead!

Once we got inside and paid for our entrance (4EUR/$6) and audio guides (3.30EUR/$4.95), we descended into the cold, dank, darkness of the old Paris mines. 130 steps down. I don't remember exactly how deep it is, only that it is much further down than the subway!

We were greeted by this:

It reads, "Stop! This is the Empire of Death"

As it turns out, the old mines were used as a cemetery in the late 1700's, because Paris had run out of places to put its dead. The burial grounds were overflowing, and the quarries were empty and unused.

They filled these tunnels with the remains of over 6 million Parisians! Some creep had the great idea of going down there and organizing it all...turning it into a grisly piece of art and architecture.

The whole tour took about 45 minutes, and was very interesting...though, I would have been lost (figuratively) without my audio guide, which explained everything and gave a lot of background information.

It was pretty creepy and weird, walking down these long, silent, passageways lined with bones. Strange to think that these cold hard remains were actually people once.

In addition to the bones, there were tombstones, poems, epitaphs, and more.

There were even some miniature models of buildings...I don't remember exactly why. You'll just have to go there and listen to the audio guide yourself. My memory is like a sieve.

There was even a well, which was used to quench the thirst of the men who worked on the walls.

I'm not sure how I'd feel about drinking out of there, though...

Even with the amount of visitors waiting outside, and the line moving steadily, it didn't feel crowded inside at all! In fact, we hardly saw anyone else...I think a lot of people get wigged out and cruise through as fast as they can. Also, if you don't have the audio guide, it gets pretty redundant. "Oh look! More bones..."

When we emerged, if felt good to breathe fresh air, and squint into the sun, but I would recommend it to those interested in history, or a creepy thrill. It is really unlike anything else I've ever seen!

For more information: http://www.catacombes-de-paris.fr/english.htm

But before we part for the day, let me make one more recommendation. If you are going to visit the Catacombs, take a short walk down to la rue Daguerre to visit the wonderful farmers market (but beware the little Frenchman who will flatter you and then make you pay 8 EUR for a little box of strawberries) and the most adorable garden creperie, La Belle Ronde. You will love its setting, its gnome,  and its delicious crepes (strawberries, lemon curd, and whip cream for me) that are unlike any crepe I have ever eaten before or since.

Nutella & Banana, I believe.

Bearcat Caves

Dear followers,
Please forgive my absence over the last week. I realize this is a terrible start for a newborn blog.
However, it was Easter weekend, and it did involve new adventures and some most excellent family time. Where would the inspiration for a new post come from, if not that?

Let me start with a confession: I almost did not take part in this marvelous adventure.
That goes against all my goals for this year, but I was feeling cranky due to some travel-related irks (they do exist, believe it or not...), one of those irks being a lack of a good pair of hiking shoes (a post for another day).
However, after some prompting from my brother and sister-in-law, I dug out my decrepit old Merrells that retired 3 years ago (why haven't I thrown them out?), and tagged along.

Some backstory:
Brother Mike is the true adventurer of the family. He discovered the existence of the "Bearcat Caves" somewhere on the internet. There is a geocache hidden in one of them, and the goal was to find it. He also learned that there was a bigger and better cave near the geocache cave, but there were no GPS coordinates for that one. Goal #2 was to find this cave, and to explore it, if at all possible (apparently the guy that put this info up on the web saw a cougar there, or something...SKETCHY....).

A group of 11 of us met at 10:30AM Saturday, and drove towards the Monte Lake area. Then we ditched the tenderfooted Civic, and piled into Behn's truck to trek through the muddy/snowy dirt road to our destination. That was an adventure in itself!

After bouncing around in there for 30 minutes, we hiked 20 minutes over some scrubby grassland and plenty of fallen trees. The Little One (4'11" sister-in-law and BFF, Katie) wandered off alone and almost got lost. Luckily we tracked her down before the cougars and ticks got her.

We found a few little nooks and crannies fairly quickly, but nothing that could really be considered a real "cave". Eventually though, we did get to the geocache cave! It was very cool. The boys rigged up a rope to make getting down the steep slope a little easier.

It was pretty slippery inside...even though we hit the 18+ degrees that day, inside the caves it was still very cold and icy, and there was a lot of snow built up in places.

The icicles were amazing! I had never seen them get so big before! It was really quite beautiful.

We walked around for a while, took a peek at the geocache (left something there, but I can't remember what), and climbed out again. It was neat.

Goal #1: check.

After that, we split up into a few groups to search for the nearby awesome cougar cave!
Turns out it was super close, but mostly hidden by a tangle of branches. Mike eagerly geared up and was soon descending into the deep, dark, unknown!

It wasn't long before he was shouting up things like, "This is awesome!" and "There's a huge drop-off!" and "Wow, there's like a huge cavern down here!", and the rest of us were dying to get in there and see it for ourselves!

Eventually another entrance was found...

 as well as a super creepy/amazing narrow "chute" into the deepest and darkest part of the cave. It was super scary! We had to lay on our stomachs with one foot stuck in a loop on a rope, and the guys would lower us into the depths.....SO freaky! Its so dark, you couldn't see where you were going, and it was so icy and slick. The worst part was going back up the same way. It was like the birthing process all over again...

Needless to say, at the end of the day we were all filthy, tired, and hungry, so we wrapped up the day by soaking up some quality vitamin D, and roasting hotdogs! It was like a perfect summer day!

The old fogey needed a nap after all the hard work. (I managed to hold out until 8PM....then it was game over).

We were all so stoked about exploring the awesome caves that are SO close to home. I had no idea there was anything like that around here! Now I want to go back when its warmer, and most of the ice is gone. Apparently it never leaves completely though.

You can check out a video clip of the day here.

Ps. Regis came along, but he refused to get out of the backpack. He said it was unnatural for monkeys to go in caves, but I think he had just watched "The Descent" the night before...