TWO CAVES

30.08.2014

I woke up at about 4 a.m. and slowly roused myself to life. My sunburn was kind of intense. There was a dubbed over documentary about stem cell research on TV. I packed my stuff up and headed out.

At the bus station, it was impossible to buy a ticket. I gave up and went for a bowl of pho for breakfast. Then, I found out I had to pay the bus driver directly for the trip to Lang Son. So weird.

Buses here are ridiculously slow. Before we left the city, we crawled along the main street until the bus was full. Only then, could we speed up, until someone got off, wherever the hell they wanted. Then, we had to try and fill the bus back up again.

Just outside the city, the bus was inspected by the police. They only looked in the bottom of the bus and I'm not sure what they were looking for. But as soon as we were out of sight, the bus driver took a big green sack of something from somewhere and shoved it into the hold below. Hmmmm…. I wonder what he had in there.

As we drove along we kept picking people up. Some people even had to sit in the aisle on those plastic stools everyone loves around here.

The bus wound through lush mountains and past small creeks with wading water buffalo and naked bathing children. I had literally jumped into the pages of a National Geographic. I was way out there, for real.

When I got to Lang Son, I opted out of the taxi again. It was only 4 km to the caves, so I just walked.

There were two caves and they were both drippy and creepy, they even had bats living inside. They were also virtually empty, compared to the last one in Ha Long Bay, which actually had a line up and was packed full of other tourists. If I travel so far, I should at least have some solitude, am I right?

The first one had a big hole in the top, that let in the light. You could climb to the top and look out over the suburbs. Haha.

There was also an old lookout with an ancient wall and gate. It was nice. When I climbed back down, I walked to the second cave, which had an actual river running through it.

I wasn't too tired after that, so I just walked back to the bus station, grabbing some snacks on the way. The hotel across the street from the station was a little expensive by Vietnam standards so I walked a little further and found a cheaper one nearby.

cave