What You Can Expect When Visiting Dark Cave in Phong Nha, Vietnam!

Apr 6

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Phong Nha is a small, one-street town in Vietnam and it conveniently sits just outside Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park, which is known for being home to over 400 caves. In this article we run through one of the popular caves to visit, Dark Cave, and why you should add it to your next Vietnam itinerary!

*Dark Cave, Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park, Vietnam*

*Swimming to the entrance of Dark Cave in Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park, Vietnam (photo taken by our wonderful tour guide on our Klook tour!)*

Phong Nha Travel Resources

Flights: Search for the best flight deals to Vietnam with Skyscanner!

Accommodation: We stayed at Sunshine Homestay and loved it, but you can also search for other Phong Nha accommodation on Booking.com, which is our go-to for accommodation. Alternatively, you can look to stay in Dong Hoi, which is a more central location. Most tours will also pick you up from here and transport you to Phong Nha which is great.

Transport: We use 12Go to book all our transport around Asia - we used it to get to and from Phong Nha.

Activities & Tours: We booked this tour through Klook and LOVED it! Our guide was amazing and it was an all around great day. You can also search for other tours here. Plus, you can use code “GOFORLAUNCHKLOOK” to get a discount on your bookings!

Visiting Dark Cave is one of the best day tours you can do during your time in Phong Nha, and it was actually one of our favourite things we did in all of Vietnam! While there are hundreds of caves in Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park, not all are accessible to tourists, and certainly not all are able to be visited on a day trip. While some are more attracted to a more peaceful, relaxing cave experience, a visit to Dark Cave is more for those seeking a little adventure. It is definitely more of a touristy experience than some of the other caves, but we just had so much fun and couldn’t recommend it more.

HOW TO GET THERE

You can certainly visit the cave by yourself, by motorbike or scooter, however, if you’re like us and you prefer to not drive scooters and motorbikes, then you can book a tour to Dark Cave at your accommodation, or online. We did this joint tour to Paradise Cave and Dark Cave with Klook and had an amazing day. Our guide Victor was so much fun and so knowledgeable, and the group size was not too big making it a really enjoyable day!

*The entrance to Dark Cave, Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park, Vietnam (photo taken by our wonderful guide on our Klook tour!)*

WHAT IS DARK CAVE

As the name suggests, Dark Cave is a completely pitch black cave, with no lights fitted on the inside. While it’s not the largest or longest cave in the world, or even in Vietnam, it is a very popular tourist attraction. I don’t know if we’d ever visited a cave of this size before without any fitted lights, and we loved the experience. However, before we get to the cave itself, we should run through how you get there, because it certainly is a very unique experience!

—> Riding in a hot air balloon in Vang Vieng, Laos!

HOW TO GET TO THE ENTRANCE OF DARK CAVE

Getting to the entrance of the cave is a true experience in itself. First of all, you ride a 400m zip-line! This is the longest zip-line in all of Vietnam! Yep, that’s right, a zip line! We both conquered our fear of heights and had so much fun. It’s not every day that you get to the entrance of a cave via a zip-line, so this is definitely a big draw for tourists.

It is worth noting there are some weight limits for the zip line - a minimum weight of 40kg, and a maximum weight of 90kg. If you don’t fall within those requirements, or you’ve got a massive fear of heights, don’t worry, you can still access the cave. You’ll just do it via kayak instead!

Once off the zip-line, you actually hop into the water and swim 20m to the cave entrance. Again, if you can’t swim, there is a somewhat sketchy looking path that you can walk instead. That was something we liked about our tour - that there were alternative options for everything, making the tour more accessible to more people.

INSIDE THE CAVE

Once at the cave, it’s time to switch on your headlights and walk 1km through the darkness. Our guide even had us all turn our lights off at one point and it was completely pitch back - you couldn’t see your hands in front of you, it was kind of crazy! You make your way across small rivers, through narrow passageways, and over some rocks, and once you do, you’ll make it to a natural mud bath! Our guide Victor claimed that he looks so young from bathing in the mud every day. We’re not so sure about that but we sure had a lot of fun! Before jumping in, Victor made sure to let us know not to let any mud get in any of our “holes”. To quote Victor, “your eyes, ears, nose, mouth and maybe some other ones…”.

—> ALL the gear we use to film our YouTube videos!

One of the coolest parts about being in the mud bath was that you were completely buoyant! It was such a bizarre feeling but a really cool experience.

Once you’re done with the mud bath, you’ll make your way back out of the cave, kayak back to where you started, and get to spend some time swimming in the river, and enjoying some of the different adventure activities, including a zip line into the water, an above-water trampoline and a giant waterslide!

We had such a fun time at Dark Cave and if you’re looking to do something a little different and more adventurous, no matter if it is a bit touristy, then this is the perfect experience for you. If you’d like to check out the full tour that we did, you can read our full article here, or check out the tour on Klook here!

We hope you found our article useful! Make sure you check out our Phong Nha travel resources at the top of the article to help you plan your time in Phong Nha, and you can check out some of Vietnam videos on YouTube using the links below!

Tours Visiting Dark Cave

—-> Paradise Cave and Dark Cave Day Tour (this is the one we did!)

—-> Dark Cave and Phong Nha Cave Day Tour