Day 12
Long Son – Phong Nha
98 km
..after a peaceful night in the middle of nowhere surrounded by hills and perfect tranquility, I am ready to continue on my way through the mountains, a couple of villages and then the road winds up towards the unknown, the trail of the new day leads into the wild.. for hours I don’t meet a soul, well, unless the trees and butterflies have one.. the scenery behind my sunglasses doesn’t change much, it’s all breath-takingly mesmerizing.. the hills are just like a blue mist in the distance between two green giants just in front of me, and another turn, the sun comes out behind the clouds and lights the valley that already has captured my divided attention..
And then I have reached my destination of the day, a small town on the edge of the National Park that has so many hidden secrets.. one of them the World’s Largest Cave, they say it’s possible to fit several blocks of NY city inside of it.. but who knows, getting there is just a distant dream.. instead I treat myself with Paradise Cave, a spectacular beauty in the belly of a mountain.. while walking up to get there, which was a healthy half an hour walk uphill, I was wondering how people actually came across this treasure as the entrance to the cave is just a hole in the ground.. who was that one person who decided, hey, look, there is a hole, I will try to get in there.. I would never ever do that in my right mind, and the first drop by the “door” is pretty steep, so it makes me wonder even more..
Oh, and another thing I understood today was – don’t visit sites on Sunday, it’s the only holiday for the locals, so they are everywhere and they are like rednecks in the city, just cannot stay silent and savour the scenery, everything needs to be touched and verbally communicated to the rest of the group.. so annoying but let’s embrace the local culture.. or not..
