Day 61 of The Big Adventure, according to Sarah. 
Freya’s alarm went off at 6.30am and she didn’t stir. After 10minutes Parker went over to shake her into consciousness. They were both very tired and very hungover. At 6.45am Megan came in and regaled stories of her one night stand (apparently she had a great time) and then Freya piped up that she’d ended up sleeping with someone in, what turned out to be, the store cupboard. It had lasted 30 seconds and she had not enjoyed it at all. Yasmin had ended up sleeping with someone in their dorm (purely for convenience, apparently). It was starting to sound like Parker and I were the only ones who hadn’t got lucky (loose term). 
The girls headed off very hungover and very unspritely. 

Denise and I went straight back to sleep until 9.30am. 

Check out was at 10am so we packed up our bags and headed downstairs. Neither of us were feeling particularly energetic, so we went to lie by the pool with banana smoothies. It was heaven.

When we first arrived we had the pool all to ourselves, but after a couple of hours it was on the verge of crowded. 

We both realised we were quite hungry so we went out to ‘The Best BBQ Pork Noodles in the World’ restaurant. She ordered fried noodles with BBQ pork (a little unoriginal if you ask me) and I had a vegetarian pho. She was a lovely Glaswegian girl who had been living in Melbourne for the past year. It turns out she used to teach ballet on the Kings road – such a small world. 

Then we headed back to the hostel to find the other girls had returned already. We asked about how it had been and it turned out they hadn’t done the dark cave at all because the queues had been ridiculously long (apparently it was some national holiday and the entire Vietnamese population had descended on Phong Nha on this one day), so they’d ended up getting a motorbike tour around the area which was great fun. 

We all got back into the pool and Megan ending up impaling herself on a hazardous rubber ring, which resulted in free beers for the whole group! She did then faint and have to go and sit down inside. 

Then it was 3pm so I went inside to find Sam and he told me to put some trainers on and we’d be good to go. 

Trainers on, we went next door to find his bike. It was at the mechanics and they still had a little work to do on it so we stood and waited around while they tinkered. 

The wife of one of them came over to me, holding her baby and cooing at it and then turned to me and asked ‘Do you like babies?’

Now, this was a rather redundant question. I couldn’t very well say ‘No’ when she was holding hers right there. So I sort of smiled awkwardly and mumbled and tried to tickle it which ended up making it cry. 

Thankfully the bike was ready at this moment so I put Sams helmet on and hopped on the back.

He took us to a quiet stretch of road so that I could practice without having to worry about traffic.

It was very scary at first. But I got the hang of it (sort of) and went up and down in first gear a few times. 

Then he got me to try kicking up into second gear which was a bit trickier. 

You had to change gear by flicking a pedal with your foot and I kept forgetting which way was up-a-gear and which way was down. So I kicked down into neutral a couple of times instead of up to second but I got the gist. I still wouldn’t say I’m ready to take a bike out on my own but it was definitely good for me to get a feel for it.

Then he said he’d take me on a little tour and show me some of the sights of Phong Nha, so he took over driving.

We ended up driving to his friends homestay, where we stopped and had a drink overlooking the rice paddies and the mountains and chatted to his friend. 

He had grown up in the area and built his own homestay with various different bungalows. He was very knowledgable about the jungle and all the wildlife that lived there and told us stories about times he’d come across a king cobra (it sounded VERY scary) but snakes were Sams fav animals so he was loving it.

We lay in the hammocks and watched the sunset over the mountains. 

Then he said he’d take me to see the Hollywood sign (there was a huge sign just like the Hollywood one at the entrance saying Phong Nha). So we hopped back on his bike (after a few issues getting it started) and whizzed off to the main road. 

It was pretty dark by this point but the sign wasn’t lit up like it usually was. We sat and waited until 7pm to see if it would turn on but it never did. Sam was baffled as he said it was always lit up and that this was very strange. Bit of an anti climax. 

We had to head back to the hostel at this point because I was catching a night bus to Hanoi that evening, but he said next time he saw it lit up he’d send me a picture. 

So we headed back and I went to find the girls. We were all fav and they wanted to try the Best BBQ Pork Noodles in the World so we headed back there again. Sam had mentioned it was his favourite place to eat so I invited him along too and we ended up with a pretty big group of us. 

On Sam’s instruction we all had the BBQ Pork pho which was indeed delicious and very filling. 

We realised it was getting pretty late so we headed back to the hostel to get our bags. I squeezed in a cheeky Oreo shake, we said goodbye to our new found friends and headed off to the travel agent where our bus would pick us up. 

It was supposed to pick us up at 9.30pm and we were still waiting at 11pm. We were not impressed. 

When it did finally arrive, we all piled on to find there were only 2 seats available. And we were 3. 

We caused a bit of a commotion and the driver told one of us to sit in the aisle.

Absolutely not. 

We said we wanted a refund and got a bit feisty and the bus driver ended up kicking someone out of their seat into the aisle and then I had to sit in their sit. It was actually very awkward because we were then essentially sat next to each other. I asked if he’d like to share the blanket but he replied with a huffy no. 

Freya and Parker sat next to each other on the back row which was apparently very uncomfortable. All in all, not our greatest bus journey.