This Is the Vietnam We Came For 🇻🇳 ｜ Phong Nha, Ninh Binh & Hanoi

Phong Nha is home to some of the largest and most spectacular caves on earth, including the Suon Dong, the largest known cave in the world. We weren't about to spend several thousand dollars and multiple days exploring that one, but fortunately you don't have to, because the entire region sits on an enormous limestone cave system and we came here to explore as much of it as we could. We started with Paradise Cave, or Dong Tien Duong, a massive cave stretching more than 30 kilometers beneath the Phong Nha National Park. The standard entrance costs 250,000 dong, about $10, and gives you access to the first kilometer of the cave. Getting there requires a decent climb and quite a few stairs, but once inside a wooden walkway takes you through a series of enormous chambers filled with some of the most impressive formations we've seen anywhere. And we've been in a lot of caves. Stalactite came from the ceiling that seemed impossibly high. Enormous columns connect the floor to the ceiling and formations cover almost every surface. The scale is difficult to capture on camera, but this place is spectacular. And despite the stairs, you don't need any caving experience to explore it. Once you're inside, the entire public section follows the walkway, making Paradise Cave one of the easiest ways to experience the cave system that made Phong Nha famous. Our next cave was a little different. Dark Cave, or Hang Toi, replaces the wooden walkway and dramatic lighting with a zipline, headlamps, cold water, and a whole lot of mud. For 450,000 dong, about $18, the experience starts by ziplining across the river toward the entrance of the cave. From there, you swim across the river, enter the cave, and eventually leave the platforms behind. Then you continue on foot through the water, deeper into the cave, until you reach a natural mud chamber. And apparently filling an underground cave with tourists and mud has a fairly predictable result. Within a few minutes, everyone was covered in it. Paradise Cave is the one to visit for incredible formations. Dark Cave is the one to visit if you want to actually play in a cave. And it's definitely better with a group. But not everything we did in Phong Nha involved disappearing underground. Bruna wanted to visit something called the Duck Stop. I had questions, mostly why. But relationships require compromise, so off to the Duck Stop we went. The basic idea is exactly what the name suggests. There are ducks, a lot of ducks. You feed them, they chase you around, and somehow this became an attraction. And against all expectations, it was hilarious. By the end, I was laughing harder than I had at almost anything else we've done. It was simple, completely ridiculous, and probably one of the most wholesome experiences of our entire trip. We paid around 100,000 Dong each, just a few dollars, and that even included a small meal and a beer or water. We also spent a day hiking through the botanical gardens inside Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park. For 80,000 Dong, about three dollars, you can follow several trails through the tropical forests, passing waterfalls, and viewpoints along the way. We also passed several depressions in the forest that look suspiciously like old bomb craters, and that wouldn't exactly be surprising. Quang Binh Province sits just outside the former demilitarized zone and was heavily bombed during the Vietnam War. Even today, the landscape throughout this part of Vietnam still carries reminders of that history. But our favorite part of Phong Nha wasn't actually an attraction, it was the roads. Rent a motorbike and ride through the national park. The roads wind between enormous limestone mountains covered in jungle, with very little traffic and incredibly scenery basically everywhere you look. Go early in the morning or around sunset and it's even better. We rode motorbikes throughout Southeast Asia, and Phong Nha was my favorite place to ride. 10 out of 10. From Phong Nha, we continued north to Nhi Binh. And if I had to choose one place to return to in Vietnam, this would probably be it. Nhi Binh is sometimes called the Halong Bay on land, and it's pretty easy to see why. Instead of limestone islands rising from the ocean, enormous cast mountains rise directly out of rivers, rice fields, and tiny villages. Our hotel had bicycles available, so we grabbed a couple and started exploring. We rode through the countryside past the Tiet Vy and the Tien Hoang cave, following little roads between the mountains and the rice fields. And this became one of our many favorite things to do in Nhi Binh. The attractions are incredible, but so is everything in between them. You can spend an entire morning on a bicycle without really going anywhere in particular. Although for exploring further out, we switched to a motorbike. And if you're spending more than a day here, that's exactly what I recommend. Nhi Binh is spread out, and having your own transportation gives you the freedom to explore places you probably never see from a tour bus. One place you absolutely shouldn't miss, however, is the Chiang An. The Chiang An Scenic Landscape Complex is recognized by UNESCO for both its cultural and natural significance, and the best way to explore it is by boat. There are several routes available, and we chose route 2. For about three hours, a local rover takes you more than 10 kilometers through the landscape, passing through temples, valleys, and four caves along the way. And this was easily one of the best things we did in Vietnam. You float beneath enormous limestone cliffs before disappearing directly underneath them. Inside the caves, the ceiling gets lower, everything gets dark and quiet, and at times there's barely enough space between the boat and the rock above you. Then you emerge back into daylight inside another valley, completely surrounded by mountains. And this happens over and over again. It's one of those experiences where you eventually stop taking pictures, because every direction you look is something you should be taking a picture of. And after seeing Nhi Binh from the water, we wanted to see it from above, which meant stairs. Again. Quang Nguan sits beneath one of Nhi Binh's most famous viewpoints, reached by climbing 486 stone steps up the side of a mountain. And whomever decided to call some of these things steps was being generous. But once you reach the top, you understand why everyone does it. From the ridge, you can see the Lo Dong River winding through the rice fields below, surrounded by limestone mountains stretching across the horizon. At the highest point, a stone dragon follows a narrow ridge of the mountain, creating one of the most recognizable views in Nhi Binh. It's hot, it's steep, your legs are gonna hate you, but do it anyway. We also visited the Hoa Lo, ancient capital of Vietnam. During the 10th and 11th centuries, Hoa Lo served as a political center of the country under the Dinh and early Le dynasties, before the capital eventually moved to Toan Long, modern-day Hanoi. So historically, it's incredibly important. As an attraction, it was fine. Maybe we'd already been spoiled by everything else around Nhi Binh, but Hoa Lo wasn't exactly something competing for the top spot. Bai Dinh Pagoda, on the other hand, apparently decided subtlety was unnecessary. The modern complex is enormous. Temples, courtyards, giant Buddhist statues, a massive bell tower, and a long corridor lined with a hundred of Arhat statues stretch along the hillside. It's considered the largest Buddhist complex in Vietnam, and you could easily spend hours exploring it. But the part we found the most interesting was actually the old Bai Dinh Pagoda nearby. The original complex is nearly a thousand years old and couldn't feel more different. After climbing more than 300 stone steps into the mountain, you reach temples and shrines built directly into the natural caves. One cave is dedicated to Buddha, another to the mother goddess, with altars, statues, incense, and offerings built around the natural rock. But Nhi Binh wasn't just a place where we moved from attraction to attraction. Some mornings, I'd get up and run through the countryside to the Dinh Bui Temple. Other days, we'd grab the bicycles or the motorbike and just explore. There were rice fields, tiny villages, temples, rivers, and roads disappearing between the limestone mountains. And that's probably why Nhi Binh became our favorite place in Vietnam. We had things we wanted to see, but we never really felt like we needed an itinerary. You could just pick a road and go. And after spending the day exploring, we found one of our favorite meals at Chef Suong. Excellent food, incredibly friendly people, and somewhere we'd absolutely recommend if you're staying in the area. Eventually though, we had to leave Nhi Binh and continue north to our final stop in Vietnam, Hanoi. We only had four days here, so instead of trying to see the entire capital city in four days, we mostly concentrated on the Old Quarter and the area around the Hoan Kiem Lake. Hanoi feels immediately different from the cities we had visited further south. The Old Quarter is dense and chaotic, with narrow streets packed with scooters, restaurants, shops, cafes, street vendors, and people sitting on tiny plastic stools that I'm still not entirely convinced were designed for adults. And right in the middle of all of this is one of Hanoi's most famous attractions, Train Street. It's exactly what it sounds like. A functioning railroad runs through an incredibly narrow residential street, with homes and cafes sitting only a few feet from the tracks. Most of the time, everyone sits around drinking coffee, and a train is coming. Tables disappear, people press themselves against the buildings, and a full-size train rolls through the middle of everything. Is it touristy? Absolutely. Did we go anyways? Obviously. We also spent some time exploring the area around the Hoan Kiem Lake, one of the centers of life in Hanoi. On a small island near the northern end of the lake sits the Ngoc Son Temple. Connected to the shore by a bright red Phuoc Bridge, the lake provides a surprisingly peaceful break from the chaos of the Old Quarter just a few streets away. Nearby, we went to see a traditional Vietnamese water puppet show. Water puppetry originated in the villages of northern Vietnam centuries ago, when performers used flooded rice fields as stages. Today, puppeteers stand behind a screen and control wooden figures moving across the surface of the water, accompanied by traditional Vietnamese music. We then visited the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex in the Ba Dinh Square. The enormous granite mausoleum contains the preserved body of Ho Chi Minh, the revolutionary leader and founding president of modern-day Vietnam. From there, we visited the imperial citadel of Thuong Long. For a thousand years, this area served as a center of political power, first under Vietnamese imperial dynasties and later through the colonial and modern-day periods. And it brought our trip through Vietnam almost full circle. It had started in the modern chaos of Saigon and traveled north through the mountain towns, beaches, ancient trading ports, imperial cities, caves, rice fields, and formal capitals. Everywhere we went felt different, but Nhi Binh ultimately became our favorite place in the country. And even after 75 days, there was still plenty of Vietnam we didn't get to see. So this might be the end of our journey through Vietnam, but I have a feeling it won't be our last. If you enjoyed the series, subscribe and stick around. We have plenty more of the world left to explore. Thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next one.