Day 5: Middle of no where!

The front of the guesthouse... there is a nice yard in the back

Our next stop was Phang Nha and Ke Bang National Park. We arrived into Dong Hoi at 4:30 in the morning and just left on the side of the street alone by the bus... after waiting for 1/2h with many motorbikes passing by yelling "moto. moto!" our cab finally arrived! 

An Aussi named Ben just opened up a farmstay in Phang Nha 1 month ago!  He has lived in Vietnam for 4 years now after marrying a Vietnamese woman.  His wife's family lived in the north during the war and the mother fought with the north!  The stories he has from the war are unbelievable!  I will try to tell some here but there are so many it might take a few days of posts!

He is just finishing off his Guesthouse with very cute and comfy rooms with the most amazing views!

Views from our bedroom!

A farmer plowing the rice paddies, the week before we were there we were told the fields were packed with them.

In the Western travelers eyes the area is known for having 2 of the largest caves in the world but really the area is not travelled by Westerners.  Where we were staying there were a few towns were Ben (the Aussi) was the first white person they had ever seen, to get to the national park Ben has to bribe people to get us Westerners in and on top of that Westerners are still not allowed in some of the areas!

We found a place truly off the beaten track!

Although the caves are supposedly the main attractions the scenery and stories we heard there were by far the best part of our entire Vietnam trip!

Ben took us on motorbikes into the park.

After bribing the park rangers we were able to enter the park through the back entrance.
5 min after entering the park we spotted an endangered species of monkeys!

Look carefully and you can see the money with it's white beard eating the the trees.

We were on either the Ho Chi Minh Trail or Highway 20 the entire time.

For those who dont know the Ho Chi Minh Trail was built by the Viet Cong (north) to transport people, weapons and everything they needed for warfare.  The trail from the air is hidden in the jungle therefore not spotted easily by their opponents.  One part of the trail went through Laos.  The area in Laos with the  trail is the most bombed area in the world! We are at the intersection of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and Highway 20 which was built as a detour to get around the DMZ area, is the section built through Laos.

The entire ride was spectacular and really made you feel like you were in the middle of no where.  

The Viet Cong had this trial and the Americans (and everyone else fighting with them) had the bays.  The Americans would take off from the bays and fly their planes over the jungle bombing everywhere!  The Viet Cong had shooters to try to hit the planes, it was somewhat effective but did not do they damage they needed to counter the bombing they were receiving.

Starting in Hanoi they walked parts of a plane down to Dong Hoi (the area we were now) around 450km away!  They made a ramp just long enough for the plane to take off and assembled the plane under the cover of the jungle.  Once it was finally assembled they uncovered the ramp just long enough for the plane to take off.  The American's could not figure out where the plane had come from! They were taken by surprise and the Viet Cong were able to bomb the port and many of the American boats and planes.  

For our first stop we went for a walk in the jungle by the river...

Next we went to the Paradise Cave which was the largest cave in the world up until 2009 when a new cave was discovered.  Paradise Cave is 34km long and in some places 100m high!  You could have an entire community living in this cave!

We continued along the trail and visited a memorial and pagoda which was built in memory for the 8 women.  Women fought during the war along with the men.  There were 8 women making their way along the trial when they heard planes above.   They hid in a cave to hide from the bombing.  They survived the bombs but the front of the cave collapsed trapping them inside.  People were able to talk to them inside the cave but they were unable to get them out in time.  When they finally opened up the cave the 8 women were crouching in a corner on their own.  Now there is an alter at each of the spots where the women were found crouching.  6 of these women were between the ages of 18 and 22 and the other two were in their 40's. I unfortunately do not have any pictures. 

This was the highest up we could go on the trial.  Just past this memorial is where the tribes people live and the government does not allow Westerners to go into their area. 

Ben's wife's mother joined the war as a teenager.  She walked hundreds of miles fighting for the north.  Out of her platoon only her and one other survived.  She gave birth to her first child in the tunnels just north of Danang.  After the war it took her 2 years to make her way back to Phong Nha, her town where she still lives.  

In these hillsides many of American pilots were shot down and lost in the jungle.  The American's send soldiers over every year to search for missing people.  Ben has run into them on multiple occasions and his wife Bich is now friends with many of them. 

They pick someone and they search until they find them.

On this hill side they sent people searching up and down until they finally found a pilot shot down by the Viet Cong.

One of Ben's friends owns a hotel on a beach.  One day his friend went outside to find the people digging a massive hole on his property.  As it is now a hotel he has placed much foundation so in order to reach the land that would have been on top during the war they have to dig down very far.  The Vietnamese had told the Americans that it was public land so they just started digging.  It was only after some force that they told Ben's friend what exactly was going on.

After much searching and not finding a trace they finally gave up.  A day after they left a women showed up at the hotel demanding to talk to Ben's friend.  She told him she knew where the man they were searching for was.  He told her to show him, he was very skeptical but she insisted.  She brought him to the middle of a rice paddy and insisted that she was sure he was buried there. He called up the lead lady of the search.  After some convincing that he had the right place she sent another troop over to search.  They dug up right where the old woman had pointed out (she disappeared any time the Americans showed up) and sure enough they found his body.  The dog tags, and gun were missing and his pants were unzipped but they had his dental records so were able to confirm that it was the right man.  The Americans left and a day later the old woman returned to the hotel this time she brought with her the dog tags and a story.  She told Ben's friend that she had been having an affair with this man.  She was part of the north so when her husband and other soldiers found out they made her set the soldier up.  She told him to meet her in the fields where he was then attacked and killed by the Viet Cong.  The old woman re-buried the soldier so he would not be found by others but so she would always know where he was. Ben's friend called up the Americans to tell them the story but the response he got was "we never heard that. It never happened."  They did not want the family to hear that the soldier had been killed because he had left camp to see his lover.