Hi,
I arrived in Hanoi yesterday morning after 2days 3nights interested trip in Quang Binh - central of Vietnam. I would like to write a report what you read as a reference about very beautiful place in central of Vietnam. I may help for your next trip to Vietnam.
We were a group of 5 people : 2 Journalists and 2 tour operators and friend of mine. We plan to research Quang Binh's potential tourism development. As you know Phong Nha-Ke Bang National park was listed in UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites in 2003 for its geological values as defined in its criteria viii
First day ,We got on the train to Dong Hoi by 19:20 and arrived in Dong Hoi 6:00 Am next morning, the tourist train was very comfortable, clean and without delay. After having a cup of coffee and waited for our friend there who came from Danang we took a car to Phong Nha boat station. Ho Chi Minh trail is very nice road, quite and less traffic. It took us 45 minutes to get to Phong Nha boat station, we came to a local restaurant to have "chao ca" or fish porridge, that was very delicious and quite different from Hanoi. We rent a private boat to visit Phong Nha cave, I don't like the boat so much because of its roof. it was such a low roof that i couldn't stand up or foreigner can sit well. The boat trip took us 30 minutes to get to Phong Nha cave. The scenery on the banks of Son river was so peaceful and quite , sometime there were few children swimming in the river with buffaloes waving to us and said "hello" then jumping into the water. It was a chance for us to take beautiful photos of mountainous scenery and Vietnam's countryside. After few minutes registering at the gate of the cave, the boat continued bring us come in to the cave. We were amazed by the stalactites and stalagmites here. It were very beautiful of natural products in this cave. We were known that Phong Nha cave is one of the longest cave in the world, Phong Nha-Ke Bang area is noted for its cave and grotto systems as it is composed of 300 caves and grottos with a total length of about 70 km but we only allowed visit limited part inside. We came out of Phong Nha cave by the other way to continued visiting Tien Son cave. It took us 20minutes climbing to Tien Son cave. Some of us couldn't climb to Tien Son cave, it was very tired but it was worth our salt. Because Tien Son cave is also very beautiful.
We came back to our boat to continue our trip to Chay Lap home stay. We stopped our boat at security station and the car brought us to the village. Chay Lap home stay with 4 houses separate in an eco-complex. The landlord's family welcome us with friendly smile and they were so enthusiastic to answer any question from us which were concerned with these house, family and village here. We had a very nice lunch here. It was cooked a member from family, all the food material was come from local like fish from river here, vegetable from house's garden...ect. They were always happy to teach you how to cook this dishes. We had not much time here so we couldn't overnight here but we ensured to come back and stayed here.
After having lunch we take the car to Nuoc Mooc eco-trails. We were out of the car and started trekking for 1hour in Nuoc Mooc eco-trails. Phong Nha National Park's vegetational cover is variety. They built some wooden bridges and floating bridge over the streams. It looked lovely and so friendly with environment. We came back to our car to go to Woman cave - a historical relics in the war. We came to headquarter of Phong Nha National park's Management to have meeting with director about our plan to develop tourist activities which are very friendly with environment here. Our meeting finished in the best result. They were welcome us to start our project here and ensured to support any our difficulty.
We continued our trip to Cu Nam village - a heavy destroyed village in the war. It took 45 minutes by car and 2.5 hours by cycling. We visited some families here and discussed with my friend here to make a plan to do some charity activities here in our next trip. We visited fish farm to learn fishing and having very nice time in field to learn some about planting seeds and tree. After having dinner with friend's family here we took our car back to Sunspa resort in Dong Hoi.....finish the first day.



