What About Vietnam – S5-E23 - Pushing Limits, Finding Magic – Caving and Trekking in Phong Nha’s Tu Lan Cave System
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What about Vietnam?

A podcast with Carrie Newsome. The series where Carrie talks with travellers about their experiences and adventures. Find out more about Vietnam from the people who have actually been there. What about Vietnam? Whether it's adventure, exploring the culture and cuisine, shopping or just soaking up the sun. Let Carrie and her travellers pave the way for a magical holiday in Vietnam. What about Vietnam? MUSIC

Xin chào and welcome to the What About Vietnam podcast. I thought I'd just jump in with a little bit of an intro here to this recording. It was done with my husband in Hanoi and it is a podcast that's just going to focus on one particular experience that

and that is the experience of the Tulan cave system in Fongna through the Oxalis tour group. And this experience was one had by my husband. So...

So rarely will you get him to come on and do something like this, but I was thrilled that he did and I think you're going to get a lot out of it. I hope you will see it as some kind of insight to help you make a decision as to whether or not you would like to do caving or trekking or hiking and

as Andrew goes into quite a bit of detail about what you can expect, what kind of fitness that you would need or don't need to do it, and just how well-organized Oxalis is in delivering that program for you. As I said, this is actually recorded in Hanoi. There is a little bit of background noise, so I hope you'll be

forgiving of that, but you can't get any more authentic than this, I can tell you. So sit back, enjoy, and please welcome Andrew Newsome to the program. Now, people, this could not be any more authentic if it tried. I'm sitting here on the balcony of our hotel in Hanoi, just having come back from Phong Nha, and I'm sitting here with my husband, and he's

This is a happening interview which I never thought would ever happen, as in I would ever get the chance to interview my husband.

on this show, but it's only because, and he's only agreed to do it because he has had such an amazing experience in Fong Nha doing the two-land, four-day expedition with the Oxalis Adventure Group Company. And I didn't want to let time lapse before I interviewed him because he

He's been on such a high and he can remember everything and it's kind of vivid. I just wanted to do it now. I'm just hoping that there's not too much street noise and if there is some background that you do pick up, people, please forgive me. It's just authentic Vietnam in its truest, most realistic self. Please will you welcome Andrew Newsome to the program. Hello, Andrew. Hi, Kerry. It's great to be here.

Okay, I'm going to treat you gently, but I'm going to definitely pick your brains about this day because...

I have to say that this is all about the expedition. It's all about those four days doing this caving trip, and I'm sure you're going to get a lot out of it from Andrew. So, Andrew, maybe can we start with your motivation to do it in the first place? When we were sitting back in Australia and making up some plans for Vietnam, it was always on the map.

But why this one? What was kind of the reason behind you wanting to do this Tulan four-day expedition one? Why this one? So I didn't even know that there were caves in Vietnam until I heard your interview with Howard Limbert, who helped set up Exalis and –

discovered quite a few of these caves. And then from that, I had a look at their website and I just thought it would be a fantastic thing to do. The Son Dung Cave, which is in the same area, is like the largest cave in the world. And there's a whole bunch of other cave systems. I have done some caving before when I was in like Boy Scouts as a kid and a little bit in the army as part of adventure training. So I knew I really enjoyed that.

I quite enjoy hiking and jungles and wildlife and all that sort of stuff. So when I had a look at the Exalis website, they had a range of available guided tours, ranging from like a half-day trip that's suitable for the whole family all the way up to four- and five-day tours.

adventure treks through the jungle and the caves. But the Sondung Cave is kind of the, you know, like the flagship trip.

And you basically spend the entire four days traversing through and sleeping overnight in Sondung Cave. But that only has very limited spots available. And by the time I got round to booking, that one wasn't available. But when I had a look at all the other tours, the two-land, four-day expedition tour,

looked like a really good combination of trekking through the jungle and going through a range of different types of caves. So I thought that was probably the best one for me. So for everyone out there who's, you know, considering doing the same thing, it is an exciting thing to do. But there's a lot of talk about levels of fitness and

you know, what trip and what activity would suit you best. Maybe Andrew, you know, kind of speak to people about level of fitness to do this. Now, I want to preface this because the occasion that we did this trip

and had time in Fong Nga. Would you believe it? It was a heat wave. So we're talking like 40 to 43 degrees at the time and it is April 2024. So that was kind of not expected, not planned for and neither hoped for. So that added a level of difficulty to it. But Andrew, speak to us a

what level of fitness you need to do something like this two-lounge one. And on the day, just talking generally about the people that joined you on it, what their level of fitness was as you witnessed it going about? I've only obviously done one Exalis tour, but it's obvious from the website that they have a range of tours that suit different levels of fitness.

The Tulan four-day expedition, the Harbian deep jungle expedition and the Sondul expedition sound like they're the three most difficult ones. Level six, does that mean anything? Yeah, Exalis have like a six-level system and they filter all their trips across those different levels and you can see that on the website. But for the hardest ones, I think you would definitely –

Not only need fitness, but you probably want experience as well so that you have the confidence. So you would need experience. Trekking. Overnight trekking experience, climbing up and down steep terrain, rocky terrain, scrambling over rocks and boulders.

For this one, there's swimming through the caves, so you need to be a reasonably confident swimmer. You don't need to be a strong swimmer. There's no strong currents. You've got a life jacket on, but you need to be comfortable in the water so that you can get in the water and swim through the caves and enjoy it rather than worrying about the environment you're in.

And just that swimming bit, that's like fully clothed with your trekking boots on and everything, isn't it? Like we're not saying strip down to your swimmers and take a nice dive and walk through. We're talking about...

from one side to the other with your backpack on your back, fully clothed, sort of getting out the other end. Am I right? Yes. But I certainly didn't find that too difficult or too unusual. And because of the heat, it was fantastic to get into the caves, which are much cooler than the

than the outdoors and the water in the caves and in the river systems is much cooler. So being able to cool down in the water and then continue on with wet clothes was actually a benefit. If you came in the cooler part of the year, around December, January, I believe it gets quite cool. So then, you know, doing that swimming and then getting out with wet clothes would be more challenging. Music

All right, so let's start with our itinerary so we can take people through it so they can, you know, know right from the get-go what they're looking at. So first night, what are we looking at? So the first and the last night are in, you know, in some ways not part of the expedition itself. The first night was at Che Lap Farmstay, which was just some bungalow accommodation, you

by the river that Exalis use. I think you can stay there separately, but it's mostly used by Exalis so that they can get everyone for all of their tours together in one place and make sure that they can start on time on the first day. So I stayed there overnight and then got picked up by a minibus with all the other people from my tour and driven to Two Land Lodge, which is in

close vicinity of the Tulane cave system, and that's where we got all our equipment and got ready to go from there. What I'm hearing and what I've heard from other people too is you got a really good feeling really from the get-go about –

Just the level of planning, organization and training that you were going to get to use equipment and the people involved. So maybe speak to us a little bit about that. Because for me, that would be a big thing. If I kind of from day one got that confidence that, you know, the people really knew their stuff, that would help me be confident to keep going.

First thing in the morning at Chalap Farms Day, there was like four or five different groups and, you know, the staff were running around trying to sort us into the right groups so that we all got on the right bus and went to the right start point. And that was a little bit interesting. But once we got through that, it was fine. We got to Tulan Lodge, got like a series of little –

sort of outdoor briefing rooms and there's a PowerPoint and they take you through all the stuff you need to know, all the safety, what equipment they're going to give you, what stuff you need to bring yourself, the system that they have where you carry the minimum amount of stuff. They have porters who carry other stuff.

You can get rid of dirty and wet clothes each morning and it gets brought back to the lodge and you pick it up at the end and through all those different systems so that you understand how it's all going to work.

And it sounds when we were talking about it just between you and I, it was just good to get a feel for the group that you were in was kind of mixed and maybe speak to that so people can feel like not everybody in the group is these, you know,

high-end or high-octane adventurers. I think for me, when I first envisaged it, I envisaged very young people, very active people, everybody be there in the super-duper gear and all that sort of stuff, where that actually wasn't the case, was it? It was kind of more your average type person? It was very much, it was a bit of a mixed bag.

So the trip that I did was over the reunification day, long weekend. So exhalers were very busy.

And the number of domestic tourists from Vietnam that are doing these tours has only increased in the last couple of years. And because it was a long weekend here in Vietnam, there were even more. So from my group of seven, there were five Vietnamese, myself and a French guy who's been living in Australia for the last 10 years.

And from the various other groups that I saw or that we passed on the trail, I would say maybe two-thirds to three-quarters of the participants were Vietnamese and the other 30% or so were various different types of Westerns.

but all mixed levels of capability, I guess, in this kind of experience. Because what I found outstanding about this, and we didn't really know or I didn't really know until later, was that the Toulan expedition is actually touted as more difficult than the Sondung for strenuous travel.

activities and involving kind of endurance factors that you don't need as much in the Sondung Cave. So because this has got trekking and it's got jungle and it's got caving, those three levels combined makes this

kind of the most difficult. But you found that there was varying levels of skills amongst your group. They weren't really, you know, the high level achievers.

I'm pretty sure everyone in our group had previous experience doing trekking. A trek. Doing trekking. Trekking. So they may not all have done something as difficult as this, but I'm pretty sure they've all done similar stuff or, you know, maybe not quite as hot or not quite as long. But I think they definitely all had some experience. Some people...

So everyone in our group completed all the activity. The two safety staff who came with us in addition to the lead guide were obviously very experienced. They recognised which people were less confident than others and they sort of provided a level of assistance to them. So like when they're scrambling up over rocks, they're like, you know, put your foot here, grab my hand and I'll pull you up a little bit, you know,

helping them with their balance over the uneven terrain and that sort of stuff. Okay, so let's talk about some of the activities then individually. Talk to us a little bit about the hiking element. So it was almost all...

through the jungle. There are a few patches where you're going through a valley where it's a bit more open, but most of it was through the jungle and a lot of it was quite steep uphill or downhill and quite a bit of it was over very uneven and rocky terrain. So often you were kind of scrambling over boulders and rocks and

You know, the slopes were often around about 45 degrees. Wow. Which is quite steep. Fortunately, considering the heat, when you're in the jungle, you're pretty much always in the shade, which made it a little bit cooler.

And then it just opened out a few times around the valleys and around some of the rivers. And then the swimming element. We talked a little bit about that before, but maybe give us a bit of a deep dive into that. So there were quite a few rivers that we had to get across. Some of them we just sort of walked across because they were like knee-deep.

There was a couple that we had to swim across and a few of the caves were wet caves, which basically means, you know, the cave's half full of water and you need to swim all the way through it. Anytime we were actually swimming, there were life jackets provided and we all had to wear them.

You know, I'm a reasonably strong swimmer and I'm confident I could have done any of the swimming without a life jacket, but I had no issues wearing it. And, you know, you're there to experience the cave. So just being able to float along and look around rather than having to concentrate on swimming was great and definitely, I think, added to it overall. And I imagine just from the pictures I've seen that swimming

Just that lovely coolness of being in the water, just being able to look up 360 degrees must have been awesome. You mentioned also about rafting. So talk to us a little bit about, I mean, I know you said there was no rapids or rough water, but there was definitely crossing rivers inside the cave, believe it or not, and you were rafting. So talk about that. Okay.

I think to mix it up as much as anything, there was like a river crossing that we could have swum across, but they had like a big inflatable raft positioned there and we used that to get across. And then in one of the caves later on where we were abseiling down off a cliff into the water, instead of obviously it takes a little bit of time for each person to individually abseil down, so instead of having people sitting in the water,

waiting for everyone else to abseil down. You abseil down onto a raft and then sat there on the raft until everyone else had come down. And then you could either stay on the raft and paddle out or you could get into the water at that point and swim out of the cove.

Okay. And you mentioned also something about ladder climbing. What's that? Yeah, so there was just one part where we needed to go up an almost vertical section and it wasn't really suitable for climbing or scrambling up. So there's a permanent ladder there that went up about...

probably 15 metres. And just as a safety thing while climbing that ladder, you put your harness back on and you were clipped onto a line so that if you slipped off the ladder, you wouldn't fall. Okay, so one of the things that I was really impressed about

when we were talking about it afterwards was your impression of the organisation. Like you just couldn't speak highly enough about the planning, the safety briefings, the descriptions. And considering you're coming to a country, you know, that...

English is the second language. You know, you don't have that kind of familiarity to give you some sense of confidence. You really raved about it. Can you speak to us just a little bit more about that? Because I think that for people who are making the journey to come to Vietnam in the first place, coming to Phong Nha and then doing something like this, I just think

Let's answer that. Let's really put to bed that so people can feel really good about it. Yeah, I thought from go to woe, the whole thing was very well organised. Obviously, they've spent a lot of time refining their processes and their itineraries and putting everything in place in the background.

so that everyone who comes on the trip can focus on having a really good time and all the logistics and all the stuff behind the scenes is taken care of. Yeah. And, you know, I presume that kind of went also for your guides and the staff and, you know, you spoke of your guide, Annetta, and, you know, how great she was in leading everyone. So porters and I heard even the food's good. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So Annetta, the lead guide, was fantastic. She spoke very good English and she explained everything that we needed to know twice, obviously once in Vietnamese and then once in English.

She did a really good job of making sure all of us were having a good time, we had any issues or anything that she or any of the other crew could fix, they were all over it. The itinerary was very well paced, so we never felt like we were in a rush or that we couldn't take the time to enjoy everything, but at the same time, it didn't really feel like we were ever wasting time.

When we were hiking, because of the heat, we took quite regular breaks. You could cool down and drink and catch your breath if you needed to, and then we'd keep going. But we still got everywhere we needed to go, did everything we needed to do. It was really good.

And you haven't yet talked about the food. You raved about the food. Come on, like, let's get on to the food. So the food was really good. Obviously, you're eating out in the jungle, but, like, it might be at the mouth of a cave and they throw down a tarp. And I don't know where all the food came from. The guys just kept opening their backpacks and pulling out more stuff, like,

I guess you'd call it simple but traditional Vietnamese food. So there was a lot of pork, a lot of chicken. The first lunch we were making rice paper rolls and eating them at the entrance to a cave. Soups, fruits, all sorts of tasty things. There was a vegetarian in the group and there was extra stuff for her. And there was always plenty of food. Music

You may see at the beginning of the show notes in the podcast channel that you're listening from some words that say, text me a message. It's a great idea. Don't get me wrong. I love hearing from you and whether that's your thoughts on the episodes, some questions, messages of appreciation. I just love the feedback. It's really great. However, I feel it remiss of me

to A, not thank you for them, but to B, not be able to respond directly to you. So if you have sent me a question and I've got lots and you haven't heard from me, there's a really good reason why I actually don't have the ability in the technology to respond to you. They kind of expect...

that you would or I would answer the questions in the form of a show. And there's just kind of too many and I just think it's just too personal not to do it that way. So I wanted to alert you to the fact that if you do send me a message through that connection option, I'm not going to be able to respond to you directly.

So if you do have a question and it is time sensitive or you want to send me any kind of message, can I suggest the following two ways? One, send me an email to whataboutvietnamatgmail.com. That is the email address that I have the most constant access to and I will aim to get back to you ASAP.

Secondly, if you go to the website for the podcast, which is whataboutvietnam.com, if you scroll right to the bottom, there is a chance for you to leave a voice message. Now, in that voice message, I can respond to you directly.

equally with a response in voice. So if you want a quick response, that's your next best way. But I just wanted to get this into the show, make you aware of this as it really is becoming problematic and I've just got too many and I can't kind of go naming people and answering each question at

That's just a little bit silly. So if you have sent me a text message before and you're waiting on a message back as a response, I'm so sorry. I cannot do that. But if you want to send the question again, I'd be more than happy to answer. Music

And, you know, it was something that I was worried about in the heat and, you know, thinking about how were they going to keep that food fresh, you know, along the duration of that time period, especially in the heat. But you said it just kind of seemed to come from nowhere and, you know, it was fresh as and you really enjoyed it. So that was a good thing. Yes. So the porters...

weren't walking with us like we saw them at night but during the day as we were making our way through doing all the caves they were obviously walking backwards and forwards to various pickup points that could be accessed by road or scooter or whatever and they were picking up the food for that day or dropping off everyone's dirty clothes so that we could get them at the end or or whatever was needed to make it all happen. Music

So if you were to provide everyone thinking about this, what tips would you have for them?

I think you definitely, to get the most out of it, you need to pick a tour that is suitable for your level of ability. Yeah. Because if you did one of those. And we knew that it wasn't for me, right? We knew that definitely. Yes. So I think you've got to call it, haven't you? Yeah. You know, you're probably going to be planning it in advance.

So you might look at the tours and what's required and say, well, you know, maybe I can only do level two or level three. But if you're six or 12 months out and you spent that time doing a bunch of hiking and some overnight stuff, you could probably get to a higher level of fitness by the time you set out to do it. So I think be realistic, but also don't sell yourself short because I think

I can't comment for any of the other tours on the website because I've only done one of them. But I suspect if you push yourself just a little bit, you'll get the most out of it. And as you say, it's just a matter of confidence. And, you know, if you've done a few tours,

bits of trekking and a little bit of that kind of exercise to feel that way, you're going to be able to relax into it rather than, you know, treating it as a bit of a stretch or a challenge. You know, like I think to enjoy those kinds of things, if you go there relaxed and confident, then you enjoy it and you don't treat it like an arduous challenge that you've got to kind of competing with yourself to enjoy it. Music

Before you go, I just – look, I know this is going to be a challenge for you, but was there any like aha moments? No.

Like did you come to a point because I thought your aha moment was actually right at the end when you rang me and said, you know, it was through, it was just absolute amazing. But was there any aha moment while you were doing it that you went, God, I'm just glad I'm here and I'm doing this? Was there anything in that?

Like we've talked about a lot of stuff, but we haven't really talked about the caves. And I mean, obviously the caves are mostly what it's about. Knock yourself out, Andrew. Talk about the caves. And just the caves themselves were amazing. The scale of them.

pristine nature. I'm not sure exactly what the system is, but access to these caves is government controlled. Exalis have got some sort of permit where they can only let so many people per year through them. Obviously, Exalis are very invested in looking after the caves. So there's some areas you can't go into. There's no rubbish...

If anyone sees the tiniest scrap of rubbish, they pick it up and take it out with them. That's great to hear. Yeah, they're just beautiful caves. Some of them are massive. There's all different types of formations. As we were going through, Annetta had a lot of information about how different types of formations formed and the calcium carbonate and the silicon dioxide and various other things that I can't remember now, but...

But would you have said prior to doing this, you were really into caves? Because I've been married to you for 20 years and I can't really think that you were into caves before. You'd go, nah, you know, like we're going to go and visit caves.

So for you to go, oh, we haven't talked about the caves and how amazing they were. I don't have a good answer to that. But seeing the photos of the caves in Vietnam and realising that they were something above and beyond what I've ever seen before in Australia...

It just really looked like something that I knew I would enjoy. But even expecting that, I was just blown away by the variety, the scale, the unspoiled nature of the caves. It's fantastic. Yeah, and I think they're really strong on keeping that unspoiled nature of the caves that, you know,

That footprint of the tourist is very well monitored and they're under very strict conditions to do so. So that is good. But I think you also mentioned that there was some beautiful natural light coming through from various aspects of the caves, which they try and capture on film, but you've got to be there, really, don't you? Maybe one part of the tour that I was less into was

was they have at different points in different caves, they have some opportunity for some staged photographs. They know the best way to do it. They know the best settings to put on your camera or your iPhone to capture it. And you can do poses or whatever you want and get some really fantastic photos of you to put on your Instagram or whatever the kids do these days. Music

In just wrapping up, Andrew, is there anything I didn't ask you, anything else you just want to mention? Because, like, this is your story, and I want to make sure that for you and for everyone listening, they just get everything they can from you on this tour.

I think we've covered it, Kerry. I can't recommend it enough. It definitely exceeded my expectations. And if you're interested in caving, jungle, nature, tracking, a unique experience that it's difficult to get anywhere else, and you're in Vietnam, then I would absolutely recommend one of these trips.

Thanks a lot. I really appreciate you doing this because I know how much you love doing this kind of thing. I think everyone, you want to feel really honoured to get this because this is really heartfelt and I think it's just fabulous that it turned out to be as good as we hoped. Anything for you, my darling. Thank you for listening.

What about Vietnam?