Phong Nha National Park

After lunch in Dong Hoi, we hopped back on our bikes to ride to our hotel near Phong Nha national park.

Nick made good use of the sweet scarf (made in one of the nearby ethnic villages) he'd bought from Treehugger Cafe.

We saw ingenuitive floating houses. Apparently the flooding gets so bad, the local villagers invented these "safe houses" for their families to go when the river rises too much. The barrels under the house float, pushing the whole structure up along the poles along the outside. Super clever!

We saw what looked like a funeral procession taking place among the rice paddies.

Two of my favorite things to do in other countries are visit grocery stores and cemeteries. This one was particularly beautiful.

Our lodging for the night was Chay Lap Farmstay, a cute little farm-resort nestled next to the huge limestone karsts. We were the only ones staying at the hotel that night, so we had a good time drinking champagne, chatting with the staff, and challenging one of our sweet waitresses to a pepper challenge with the homegrown thai chilis (she was not as pleased by it as we were!).

Just a short 50km afternoon motorbike ride.