We hauled ourselves out of bed at 5am today to catch our early bus to Phong Nha. We wanted to make the most of our shorter time there. I awoke with crackly nose sinuses and a banging headache; not ideal for a 5 hour bus. I forgot to take pills and so they were in the luggage compartment under the bus too. Rookie mistake.

We arrived and i immediately had some water and painkillers. Feeling a little better we began to plan our 50 hours in Phong Nha. Today we chose to rent a motorbike and head around the countryside activities. We started with a lunch spot which was pretty average. From here we drove 20 minutes to the duck stop.

The duck stop is a working farm in Phong Nha which has a famous duck leader experience. We wore our Vietnamese style hats and put on waterproof sandals. Then we met the ducks. We got to throw food to them, have them eat out our hands and by our feet. They were very gentle with it only feeling like a few pebbles being moved around your hand as they fed. We also got to lead them around the compound briefly for amazing photos.

Included in the duck stop experience, we got to munch on crispy pancakes and a complimentary drink, I had water to prevent my headache from returning.

Next we drove to a place called ‘the pub with cold beer’. Robin had a coffee and I had a green tea as we soaked up the first, and probably last, sun in a few days.

On our way back we tried to visit the Phong Nha cave but had come too late :(

We had dinner, pizza pasta, to change up the Asian food we have been having.

-M