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For details of the places I visited in Vietnam along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, with GPS Coordinates, see my book Vietnam Caves.

For details on motorbiking in Vietnam and Cambodia, from buying and selling a motorbike, to border crossing, see my book Motorbiking Cambodia & Vietnam.

 

I awoke this morning with all the intention in the world to take it easy and rest. Who am I kidding.

I was going to work on the bike, but decide to hand it in to the mechanic next door. He speaks no english, so I ask the hotel owner to translate. I inform her that the bike has no power, and when you run it flat out, it backfires and dies.

She translate in what sounds like 500 words, strung together into 3, spoken over 20 seconds. Then she turns to me, proudly says, done, and walks away.
I decide to let it be, giving no hope that the mechanic would actually find the fault. Problems that come and go are the hardest to tract. As a mechanic will think it is something, fiddle with the part, and if the problem goes away, think he fixed the fault. However it could just be that the problem went away for a short time as normal. There is no way to tell if it is fixed until the bike acts up again.

I ask the hotel what else is there to do here. She informs me that there are two more caves. I can purchase a ticket, at the docks, about 5 min walk away. So I leave my bike at the mechanic, and head over to the tourist center. They have a number of gift shops, and some small restaurants.

It’s like being in a shop in South Africa.

I look at the options, and you have to hire a boat, and pay the entrance fees for each cave. A boat can take up to 14 people, so you can share the cost. The ticket lady informs me that 4 people just rented a boat, and I can go with them. I look at the people she is pointing at, and recognize them as the chain smoking bunch I saw in the hotel’s restaurant last night. So I decline. She informs me that I will have to pay for the boat myself then. All in, boat and two caves, about $20 or so. As no one else is looking like they want to go, I bite the bullet and take it. I have come this far.

With my tickets in hand, I go down to the docks, where a number of boats are moored up. A officer at a small office assign a boat number to me, and I go find my boat. I realize then that if the officer does not like you, you are probably going to get all the small groups.

246, 247, ah, 248. Wow, they are parked in order.

I get an elderly (non English Graham ), couple, that the man looks like he takes no shit from no one. So, we pull out, me and Casper.

I choose to sit on the nose of the boat, and take some pictures. Also took a short video of us going along, check it out here.

Watch out there are rocks in the way, call the guest guard. Never mind, they are asleep.

It is so hot, even the cows go swimming. One disappeared underwater for more than a minute. Impressive.

We pass a boat with a couple in, cleaning the bottom of the river. They were bringing up sea weed like stuff. Checkout a short Video here.

Then later we passed two kids that breath hold did the same thing, way cool. Free diving in Vietnam. Check out a video here. I thought the kids were cool, but then we passed a boat with a family of three in, dad, mom, son. They used two poles each, basically like giant chopsticks. They would cross the poles making a giant X, then stick the ends in the water, bring with sticks together, and lift the end up, that now has a blob of weed on it. The power and skill to do that is just amazing. Unfortunately i missed getting a video of them. 🙁

Soon i can see the dock where the other boats moor up, and the entrance to the cave.

All the other boats were nicely moored up in line. My captain headed for a gap, but another boat reversed, wanting to come out. My caption put the boat in reverse to wait, but then the other boat turned left, turning right into our path instead of just reversing straight out past us. So what does my take no shit from no one captian do? He put our boat in forward and gas it, ramming the other boat! He pushed the other boat a bit, then baked off. His wife then pushed the boats apart, and gave him a nasty look .

As the other boat moved away, the cabin planks where all crushed in. The other captain just hid them out from the inside. there was not a word from the captain on the other boat, nor any other captains around. I guess they know not to mess with my captain.

The lady on my boat asked for my papers and tickets. she then ran up to a man sitting by a chair and desk, got the papers stamped, then ran back, and off we go into the cave. As for yesterday, I will let the pictures speak for themselves. I chose a few, that I hope you guys will enjoy. They are in order as we go about 1.2km into the cave. no engine, all hand rowing. It is amazing to see how the captains and crew steer their boats around the narrow passages and past each other.

The boat turns around by a yellow marker, then heads a distance back, untill we come to a part of the cave where there is sand. The captain runs the front of the boat up onto the sand, and his wife jumps off and indicate for me to jump off. I am like cool, they are allowing me to go closer to the stalactites. Then the women jumps on the boat and it pulls away, leaving me, without a word.

No don’t leave me. Well, I guess I am walking back then. I look around and see a path up. Following it, I get to take some cool pictures.

as I exit the cave, I see the sign for the next cave. I bought a ticket for this cave as well, and had to pay extra for the boat to do this. I assumed it is because the caves are a distance from each other, now I realize the extra fee for the boat is for them to wait for me. If they actually get anything from it I do not know.

The climb is a long way up, and steep. With some rest spots along the way.

Then I come to a small temple. The cave entrance is in fact from a different path up. So after the temple I have to go across a small bridge like section, and then climb some more steps.

Finally I come to the cave entrance. Again, I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Old stairs.

As I get outside, it is all the way down the steps again. Good workout, then I go find my boat, hopefully.

so where is my take no nonsense captain.
I look around, but do not see my captain, so I climb onto the boat, and then suddenly the captain appears, he is like a ninja. For a moment I wonder if he is going to pull a sword on me for not asking permission to get on his boat first, but he just strolls past to the wheel house. Without fuss, he pulls out, engine full power. The boat next to use snags on our boat, and we drag it along. The other boat’s anchor does not hold, and it gets dragged off the shore into the water where it eventually catches, causing the boats to pull apart. I am like, well, i think the other boat’s captain has a swim two do, should have anchored his boat better. 🙂

On the ride back the lady comes up to me and points to my backpack. She says something in Vietnamese and points to my water bottle. I offer he water, but she just keeps pointing at my backpack. Finally we give up trying to figure what she wants. She goes and sits down looking very gloomy. I click then that she probably wanted a tip. However, I wait just before we pull in back at the dock, before giving her 200K (just under $10, hey I am broke myself.) her face lights up, and now she is happy.

Cool, I walk back to the hotel, and the mechanic next door. When I get to the mechanic, he is like bike is ready. He speaks no english, so I indicate that I want to take the bike for a test ride. On the ride, the bike does not sputter, backfire and die on full throttle, but it still does not have full power, it is now funny enough, halfway between the two extremes it was. I go back and get the hotel owner to explain it is not right. The mechanic is very upset about me not being happy. So he takes the bike for a ride, and comes back saying that there is nothing wrong with the bike. I explain that at full power it does not pull right.

His reply, ride slower. I reply that up the mountains it only does 20 or so km as it has no power, and yesterday when I kept it full open, it backfired and died on me. His response, ride slower. I decide I am not going to get anywhere and ask what has been done to the bike. Reply, nothing for there is nothing wrong with the bike, so no charge.

At this point I decide that I will just ride tomorrow and see how far I come. It is over 530 km to Hanoi, and a long ride of about 12 hours if you manage a good speed. So if all goes well, I will still have to stop somewhere in between to sleep over, but I have more important things to do now, such as dinner.