Phong Nha & Dong Hoi – 31st May

The last day of the month, Friday 31st May, was a busy one. Captain Caveman was due back from the cave in the afternoon and we had plans for me to join him at Chay Lap that night. We had agreed to house and dogsit for our friends, Stu, Max & Jack, in Dong Hoi until the 10th of next month. They were off to Australia tomorrow morning and couldn’t leave the dogs with just anyone or put them in kennels. I packed my bag in the morning as I needed to check out and I paid the bill for Phong Nha Homestay, which was a bargain at 3,744,000VND (£115), including quite a bit of laundry, for a total of 17 nights. It was still one of my favourite places to stay in Phong Nha centre due to it being so clean, cheap and safe. Plus the family who own it are no-nonsense honest people. I left my bag for us to pick up later and I was heading to Phong Nha Vegan when I noticed it was about to rain. I had just stepped in to The Villas and shouted to the staff to let them know it had started to rain as they had the roof canopy open. While they rushed in to action to move stuff that was going to get wet, I got comfy and perused the rather hefty breakfast menu over a nice pot of tea and some homemade biscuits. I decided I was going to have the bacon and egg roll, but without the egg. It was really good and the bread was fresh and soft.
I spent the morning there as the rain poured down then I ordered the salami and prawn spaghetti with parmesan for lunch. It was delicious, although rather more generous with the salami than the prawns, so not great for that diet I was supposed to be on.
Captain Caveman arrived and had a pizza, as is his usual, and I didn’t share any. By 2pm we were taking full advantage of the summer cocktail offers and today, as it was Friday, there was 50% off margaritas! After a couple of drinks I got peckish again and ordered a Margherita pizza with more Margarita cocktails (this could get confusing). Our total bill with the summer offers came to just 917,000VND (£28.40) – great value and I was rather merry!
While Captain Caveman did the gala dinner with his tour group at Chay Lap, I played pool with the taxi driver. He thrashed me as he plays rules where you can hit any ball on any go – it made it quicker and certainly interesting. He offered to share his portion of french fries, which I politely declined, and we talked about his wife and family which was very nice.
We obviously arrived at Stu’s place quite late, and tiddly. Captain Caveman had shouted at me for not knowing the way when it turned out I did. I stormed off inside, leaving him to get all the bags, and we had a beer with Stu and met the dogs. They were Vietnamese dogs, and weren’t particularly friendly towards us. Rodger had a blood parasite and had recently had one eye removed so looked like a pirate and Terror was the son of Rodger, who hated his head being touched. The next week or so was certainly going to keep us on our toes, especially as the 2 dogs could not be in the same room at any time. Max, the eldest son, gave up his bedroom for Captain Caveman and I to sleep in and it had a decent AC unit which was very good of him.