Phong Nha – 19th August

We were fast asleep when the 4 cavers arrived safely at Hanoi airport at 4am on Thursday 19th August. It was in the Vietnam news about the ‘no sharing a car to the airport unless from same home or workplace’, see below:
https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20210819/ho-chi-minh-city-helps-intl-air-passengers-make-trips-to-airport/62672.html
Captain Caveman was awake at 6am and made himself a bacon, mushroom and egg sandwich for breakfast before taking Trigger, the motorbike, to work for his 8am training session. I came down to a kitchen sink of Captain Caveman’s pots and, by the time I’d washed and dried everything, I couldn’t be bothered with breakfast so I just had a few pieces of dragon fruit.
By 10am I was regretting turning down a bacon sandwich from Captain Caveman early this morning, so I had a 2nd breakfast of a bacon and mushroom baguette (no butter or sauce) and a piece of carrot. I’d already chopped all the veg, prepared the stock (using Captain Caveman’s special recipe) and seared a couple of the beef fillets. I love using the rice cooker as a slow cooker and off I went back to the Aircon in the bedroom. At lunchtime I made myself an iced chocolate drink, which was a waste of calories because it wasn’t good, finished off the tortilla and had a couple of pieces of dragon fruit. It took a bit of willpower not to start eating the beef stew which smelled so lovely. Duyet found me a spray bottle for me to use on my mushrooms and the laborious task of spraying them several times a day began, a bit sad that I wouldn’t get to eat them as I’d have left!
Captain Caveman got home from work about 5.30pm and had spoken to Ben on the phone. He’d been able to speak to the owners of Elements Collection to see if they would consider allowing Captain Caveman to stay here after Veronika and I leave next month. They had all agreed which meant everyone was happy and I was relieved that Captain Caveman would have somewhere nice to stay, especially during the flood season. That evening we dined like royalty, we shared the bottle of wine that Tony had given Captain Caveman for his birthday (we have had it in the house almost a month and I’ve not drank it)! The beef stew was absolutely lovely and we had half of it left to pop in the freezer for another time.