I’m currently sitting outside in the garden area of the Central Backpacker’s Hostel in Phong Nha, Vietnam; halfway through a 3 week trip moving north up the country. It’s 7pm local time. This morning I woke up in the village of Tân Hóa, surrounding by mesmerising mountains and countryside and a short distance from the Vietnemese jungle.

It was the last part of the 3-day Tu Lan Cave Encounter tour, run by Oxalis Adventure. In the previous 48 hours I had trecked and climbed through harsh terrain, camped in the wilderness, and swam through some of the largest underground passages I have seen to date (and if you didn’t know already – I’ve spent a fair bit of time underground in persuit of fun).

But please allow me to give you some context before we dive in! The Phong Nha – Ke Bang national park in Vietnam is home to some of the largest caves in the world, including the great Sơn Đoòng – a cave so big it has its own ecosystem growing inside it. This cave and many more are connected by miles and miles of subterranean rivers. Much exploration has been very recent (2010’s) and more potentially remains undiscovered.

Vietnamese law prohibits “casual exploration” of these areas. This could be for conservation reasons, but quite likely down to safety as well. These aren’t exactly easy places to get to and require a lot of local knowledge on navigating the terrain. Mind you – judging on the driving out here, I’d be surprised if general safety was really a concern.

So unless you are a member of a professional caving group, your only legal way in to most of these fascinating places is via a guided tour (I do happen to be a member of such a group, but a tour with other people would still be more practical and fun). Oxalis adventure are currently the only company allowed to operate tours into certain caves, so that’s who you’ll need to go through if this blog convinces you by the end!

Oxalis offer a number of different trips, varying in length and difficulty; anywhere between 1 day and 1 week of trekking, caving and camping. The tour into Sơn Đoòng cave takes a dedicating 5 nights, costs an arm and a leg (assuming an arm and a leg costs $3000), and currently has a waiting time of nearly 1 year!

So I didn’t go for this one. I went for the much more modest Tu Lan Cave Encounter. This would be 3 days/2 nights and take us into 4 different caves, with about 15km of trekking and 1km of swimming in total.

The company do a good of job of providing all the relevant information needed and making sure you’re up to the task (which means they do ring you up and ask you how many times a week you go the gym). So I just had to get myself to Phong Nha on the right day, and I’d get picked up and taken to the village of Tân Hóa where the adventure would begin.

Tân Hóa lies about 70km from the town of Phong Nha. It was an hour’s drive in the minibus for me and 9 others who would also be on the tour. On the way, our tour guide, Phi, gave lots of good information about the surrounding area and informed us of the upcoming day’s activities in greater detail. The village itself is pretty fascinating, with a growing number of “floating houses” which are designed to withstand the extreme flooding that it receives periodically. I’ve put more information about this in my main Vietnam travel blog if you want to read (temp note – it’s not ready yet).

The Oxalis office for this trip is located in the village and was the starting point. We each received a PVC backpack with a dry-box to store non-waterproof essentials. All gear needed outside of the trekking and caving would be taken straight to the campsite by Oxalis staff, so all in all we didn’t need to carry too much.

The day was a bright and sunny, and in this part of the world – that means hot. The initial 30 minute walk just to get to the shaded jungle took out one of our group due to heatstroke. I was quick to make use of the first river crossing and didn’t wait to pour some cool mountain water over me.

We had a small(er) hill climb to tackle before lunch, and a 50m ascent is a lot harder than it sounds when in the jungle. Plenty of rock scrambling and trying not to slip in patches of mud. Oxalis provide all food and drinks for the trip, and our first meal was set up and waiting in the entrance of a smaller cave in the hills. Not your usual dining experience! All food was traditional Vietnamese (perhaps excluding the cheese triangles) and didn’t disappoint.

After stuffing ourselves, it was time for the 2 larger hill climbs of the day that would take us to the campsite. About 2 hours of walking, which wouldn’t have been so bad had the temperature been more forgiving. The jungle was challenging but undeniably beautiful throughout.

It was all worth it though, as the campsite was like our own little private paradise. A sandy beach enclosing the river streaming from the cave next to us, and no other signs of civilisation for miles around. 2-man tents were set up waiting for us, along with toilet facilities and even a shack-style sauna! (Lemongrass and ginger scented).

We had one cave to explore for day 1 which was Ken Cave next to the campsite. The river here gently flows through the cave and out of the entrance down a small waterfall and into the lake. Once we’d been equipped with life vests we boarded a makeshift boat and headed inside. Few caves back home in the UK could offer this sort of way in!

Once inside a hundred meters or so, we disembarked for the dry passage and were free to look around the vast caverns. One of the most interesting and hard-to-believe elements for many of us was seeing evidence of previous water levels in the cave. Branches and debris stuck in the roof cavities would indicate just how high the water could come in the wet seasons, and it clarified how Tân Hóa village had been described as a second Ha Long Bay by our tour guide at one time.

It made for an impressive viewing, and we set off to exit the cave via a swim through the river. It wasn’t my first time swimming through an underground passage, but it was arguably the most riveting I’d done so far as we turned a corner and the light of the huge entrance came back into view. Doing such activities in the UK is always plagued by the horrendously cold water, but here it was much more inviting as we splashed our way out. A small semi-flooded side passage was our way out, and to date it has been the most scenic cave exit I’ve ever done.

We had the little paradise of a campsite to ourselves for the night. The tents all had an air mattress and sleeping bag which was more than sufficient for the 1 night in the jungle. The Oxalis crew had their own cooking area set up to provide us with another delicious evening meal and breakfast the next morning. A camp fire was burning away on the sands, and it was a great night for chatter and star gazing into the pitch-black sky.

It was an early start the next day to cover the remaining 3 caves of the trip. We began with a swim down the river and into the mouth of Tu Lan cave and into the enormous dry caverns inside. It’s strange to see (from a UK caver’s perspective) such quantity of natural empty space underground. The only thing that compares from my experiences in the UK are the man-made slate mines of North Wales. Gigantic stalactites and stalagmites act as pillars from ceiling to floor, surrounded many other impressive formations. Even the grossly oversized cave spiders made an appearance for us.

The tour guide made a good effort to get great photos for everyone before we headed out of a different (dry) entrance and swam back to the campsite.

The trek back out of the jungle would take us through 2 more caves and bypass the hills of the previous day. Kim cave was also situated close to the campsite and would be a fun mix of walking and swimming through the passages. The caving was never too technical and the swimming was easy going through the slow-flowing water. We were even challenged to a section of black-out swimming through a narrow passage – sensational!

The exit of the cave brought us to a second Oxalis campsite where lunch was waiting for us (no shortage of food on this trip!). The final cave – Hung Ton, awaited beside a waterfall and would be another highly enjoyable swimming affair. It’s still somewhat of a challenge for sure though, as you navigate around the underwater rocks that won’t hesitate the bash the knees of an unaware caver being a bit too uncautious! The depth of the water varies throughout, with some areas requiring more careful footwork to enter, and others accepting a more enjoyable jump.

There was a good distance of just swimming through Hung Ton – probably my favourite part of the trip. The last cave exit took us close to the edge of the jungle, and from here it was a trek back to Tu Lan village. The hot sun was a welcome contrast to the cold water of the caves and it didn’t take long to dry off as we walked back through the countryside.

Back in the village, we were greeted by our local hosts who would lead us to our individual homestays for the night in the form of the flood-proof houses. For a countryside village in what is often seen as a poor country, these homestays were extremely nice!

That evening we were treated to an incredible home-cooked meal by a collection of villagers. Spring rolls, pumpkin soup, various pork and chicken dishes and even some… river snails (which weren’t that bad). Cycling through the village was a delight, with no shortage of children waving as you pass by. It all very much reinforced the common experience of how nice the people are out here.

I had my first decent kip since arriving in the country, that night. Shared dorms in hostels have their benefits but zero disturbance isn’t usually one of them. Add on a rough sleeper train and the previous night’s camping – I was very much looking forward to the homestay’s double bed!

Finishing it all off the next morning was an ATV/Quad bike trail around some nearby jungle trails, with plenty of “there’s no way I’m getting through this” moments – but the vehicles proved themselves. Short but good fun! (and I’m glad we weren’t responsible for cleaning them after). Breakfast and lunch at the Tu Lan Lodge also provided no disappointments – perfectly concluding such an incredible time.

From there it was back to Phong Nha. We’d formed a really good group between us and it was a shame to be departing so soon. It’s certainly fed the urge to return and undertake one of the longer trips with Oxalis.

I started writing this blog in Phong Nha, and even though it’s probably only taken you 5 minutes to read – I’ve now been back in the UK for a month and am only just finishing it. But I can now talk from a perspective of experiencing my entire trip though Vietnam, and I can confidently say which part was my favourite (*hint* – it was this bit). As a thrill seeker with a passion for the underground world, the Tu Lan Cave Encounter rates as one of the best things I’ve done.

I don’t know when I’ll be in Vietnam next, but I do know at least 1 thing that will be on the itinary for sure.

You can check out the tours offered by Oxalis Adventure here…

https://oxalisadventure.com
https://oxalisadventure.com/tour/tu-lan-cave-encounter