Sabbath in Son Trach village

Vietnam Trip ~ Day 9

July 21, 2012

After our busy day touring the Phong Nha National Park on Friday, we spent a quiet Sabbath in Son Trach village. During part of the morning we stayed in our hotel room to do some Bible reading and then read parts of some of E.G. White's smaller books on Jonathan's phone. When our second-floor hotel room with no A/C got a little too warm and stuffy for us, we went outside to explore the village. We walked up the road in one direction, toward the highway and found a park with monuments and a small museum of war items, and spent some time looking around.

One of the many bomb craters that pockmarked the landscape - this one shows up the best due to the water in it.

Some sort of monument near the entrance to the town

Rugged landscape

The day was sunny and very hot, so when the heat got too intense we walked back to our hotel and relaxed in the lobby out of the sun. Once sufficiently cooled again, we wandered back out, this time down the road toward the river. There we found many Vietnamese tourists heading up the river on long wooden boats into the national park. We found an empty wooden bench under a shady tree and watched the happy hubub while enjoying the sounds of the river and tourists. After a while, we continued our walk and followed the river in the direction the boats were going until we got too warm and headed back to the village for another rest in the shade of our hotel lobby.

Souvenir shops on the shore

New sidewalk

Later in the afternoon, we packed up our belongings, checked out of the hotel, and called the farmstay to ask for a ride over. After the short motorbike ride there, we spent the last part of the afternoon relaxing at the farmstay with the other tourists staying there. It was such a nice place overlooking brillant green rice paddies and beautiful mountains. The farmstay had a pool and a nice open lobby that looked out to the back of the property and also out front to the fields. It was such a relaxing place to close out the Sabbath.

As dusk fell, we got in a hired car with another couple and headed back to Dong Hoi to catch our night train to Hanoi. All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed our two days in Son Trach village near the Phong Nha National Park, and would return there again in a flash! We both decided, during our time there, that we just kept liking the places we traveled to better and better as we continued on our Vietnam trip.

Next up: Hanoi