Phong Nha – 10th & 11th August

Disappointingly, on Tuesday 10th August, it was reported that another large amount of Corona cases in Vietnam were recorded yesterday, read more here:
https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20210809/vietnam-reports-secondlargest-singleday-rise-of-local-coronavirus-infections/62501.html
It was also worrying to read about how the faking stuff had already started to drift in to the Corona arena with fake test results, it had only been a matter of time – here’s the story:
https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20210810/police-break-up-ring-forging-covid19-test-results-in-northern-vietnam/62511.html
More concerning to my own personal situation was that Turkish Airlines had cancelled all their direct flights from Vietnam to Istanbul next month, which was a shame as I had my eye on booking business class (for the first time ever in my life) on any of 3 flights between 1st and 9th September for only £800! Now the Business class flights were more likely to be $1,500+ with Qatar, via Doha, or Singapore Airlines via Singapore so I’d have to remain in Cattle class which we had been told were not full anyway. There was some reports that the Government had announced that, for all foreigners who were in an area of lockdown whose visa was expiring, it would be waived due to the pandemic – bloody typical that we had just paid.
Captain Caveman had cycled to Phong Nha for a shave and a haircut so I’d already had 1 croissant for breakfast, when he returned I had another and he had one too, they are so good it’s unbelievable. In the afternoon it was really hot and I could feel Captain Caveman’s annoyance when work phoned him and said he needed to cycle back to Phong Nha, for the 2nd time today, because they required his vaccine certificate, which was to be replaced, for some reason. I’d already said we would meet an old friend and ex colleague who was in town with his girlfriend at 5.30pm for Happy Hour beers at the Phong Nha Farmstay so I got a lift with Duyet and Captain Caveman met us there later. I’ve not seen Buu for quite some time, his girlfriend and I share the same stresses of the tourist visa extensions every month. I’d had a beer by the time a sweaty Captain Caveman arrived and he had to get in the pool to cool down. We had a couple of beers but didn’t stay for shepherd’s pie, which Buu and Kat shared, as we were having spaghetti with chicken for our dinner tonight. Before we left Bich said she couldn’t do the weekly shopping trip tomorrow because she had work to do but we could ask Duyet to go to the market for us.

Captain Caveman was finally able to go on his Tu Lan take down trip to Hang Tien on Wednesday 11th August. It had been postponed until there was less water so that they could remove any equipment in the cave for the closing of the season. As I ate a croissant for breakfast I stumbled across an interesting post from an Australian about what was happening in Iceland where 69% of adults have been fully vaccinated, it’s worth a read if you have time:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=396895055125422&id=100044147934160
My morning was busy making BBQ jackfruit with garlic and onion in the rice cooker and lots of chopping while sat in front of a fan (harder than you think). I had some of the jackfruit for lunch with raw carrot and red cabbage and some toast and it was delicious, luckily, as I had made quite a lot of it. In the afternoon I tended to my small mushroom farm and the housekeeping and gardening ladies at Elements Collection watched and laughed when I told them how we had ended up with embryos instead of mushrooms to cook. One of the ladies even came to help me reseal the tops of them, asked how long they would take to grow and what we needed to do with them. I started watching another series on Netflix called Below Deck (Mediterranean) which I find hilarious even though it’s not meant to be amusing. We had been invited out that evening to An’s house in Phong Nha for a small party but as Captain Caveman was going straight there from work and I begrudged paying 300,000vnd (£9.60) for a taxi I couldn’t go. Instead I experimented with the oven and managed to make potato wedges which I had topped with some of the BBQ jackfruit for my dinner, it was really good too. So that Captain Caveman didn’t have to cycle home after drinking he decided to stay at the Glass House and I had a catch up with Duyet over my shopping list – I had written it in Vietnamese and went over to chat with him about amounts. To be honest I wasn’t expecting my Vietnamese or his English to have been good enough for this shop to work out but we would see when he went to Khung Ha market in the morning.