Discover Phong Nha Caves & a WILD Afternoon Animal Adventure! | On The Road with Niall and Adrie #2

"If you want to come to see some of Vietnam that's a little bit of a hidden gem, then I would definitely get yourself to Phong Nha." Niall

Join us on an unforgettable journey from Saigon to Phong Nha Farmstay, where the excitement builds as we prepare to meet Ben Mitchell and explore the stunning landscapes of Phong Nha.

Our adventure kicks off with caving at Phong Nha and Tien Son caves, accessible only by boat. Cruising down the peaceful river, we step into a world of towering stalactites and breathtaking underground beauty, perfect for private or group tours.

The at the Pub With Cold Beer, we experience an incredible farm-to-table moment as a meal is prepared fresh on-site—a spontaneous and authentic slice of local life.

And then, there’s the Duck Stop. Picture quirky fun like a duck foot massage and meeting their buffalo, Mr Donald Trump. It’s as hilarious as it sounds and adds a playful twist to an unforgettable trip filled with adventure, culture, and natural beauty.

02:04 Exploring Phong Nha Cave
05:11 Encounter with a Giant Spider
06:53 Admiring Vietnamese Women
11:46 The Pub with Cold Beer
17:24 Unexpected Chicken Experience
21:35 Reflecting on the Experience
27:28 Exploring Bong Lai Valley
28:45 Visiting the Duck Stop
31:05 Meeting Donald Trump the Buffalo

7 Bridges Brewing Co. - An award winning Vietnamese craft brewery from Da Nang, with breweries across Vietnam!

Rabbit Hole Irish Sports Bar - Check out their new location on Tran Nao with the best views in the city over Landmark 81!

Try Descript for free here!

Want to start a podcast? Book a Discovery Call with me on how Seven Million Bikes Podcasts can help you!

Transcript

Niall: 2:28

I have no idea what is happening, wait, wait, wait, no, it's not what we want, so, no, no, come, come. There's been a bit of confusion. We're on the airport transfer from the airport to Phong Nha farmstay that they've organized for us. We're excited to go meet Ben Mitchell, who's been on the podcast before. Talk to him again, see his farmstay and see more of Phong Nha. And we are very excited to go caving as well. I've been podcasting for years. I've been podcasting for years. And the number one tool that helped me become an award winning podcast producer is the script. No matter whether you're a tech wizard or a beginner like me, the script can help you with everything you need to start your own podcast. If you want to start your own podcast today, download the script. The link is in the show notes. It's my number one recommendation to help you create a podcast easily, smoothly, and it has heaps of AI features that make your podcasting even better. So check it out, let me know what you think. Let's get back to the episode.

Adrie: 3:42

Hey, we're at, uh, Fong Nha Farms Day. We've just had an amazing breakfast. Ben has taken us out for a village walk and we have gotten a scooter and we're going to head to Fong Nha Cave, which you can only access by boat. So we're pretty excited about that. And then there's a dry cave above Fong Nha Cave called Tien Son, I believe. And for lunch, we're headed to the pub with cold beer, which we don't really need on a cold day, but we're going to get it. And that's a wrap. Cold and delicious roasted grilled chicken, apparently. So, come along.

Niall: 4:19

Hello. Hello, hello, hello. Alright, we made it. 10, 000. We're here at the Phong Nha cave. boat tour. We're waiting to get the boat. We're trying to get tickets. We're going to try and get the cave tour. We've just been given really good recommendation by Ben. They're going to, we're going to hire the boat by ourselves. So you've got two options. He says you can get the boat by yourself, which is about 550, 000 dong. And, but then, so it's a little bit more, or you can share it with other people, which is going to be cheaper. But his point is then you're at the whim of the group. So if people take long, like me, they've got to set up cameras, they've got to get microphones already. It takes longer. You've got to wait for them or opposite. We're setting stuff up and they want to leave then we're making the trip go longer So we're gonna get a boat by ourself if we can get the change and if we can get the tickets. Let's see Do you have boat ticket?

Adrie: 5:28

Ticket for boat?

Niall: 5:30

Oh, okay. All right. Thank you

Adrie: 5:31

Two

Ticket Seller: 5:35

people? Yeah

Adrie: 5:43

Two caves.

Ticket Seller: 5:44

Two caves.

Adrie: 5:44

Yeah.

Ticket Seller: 5:45

Two caves. You buy ticket and turn to thirty, one person. And boat, five fifty. Okay. Now one boat must help people. No, no, no, no, no. Hello.

Niall: 5:57

Hello. So we're about 15 minutes on a bike. Yesterday we got told it was 15 minutes on a bicycle. Took us about nearly an hour. Um, we're here now. So 15 minutes from the Fong Nian farms there. Okay. You buy your ticket, you go give it to them, they tell you what boat you're gonna get, they tell you the number, which is 451 I think. Yes. Oh, we've gone the wrong way. 351.

Adrie: 6:31

What?

Niall: 6:34

What?

Noise: 6:35

Just the, the bureaucracy.

Niall: 6:39

So it's a classic in Vietnam. Buy a

Noise: 6:41

ticket, show a ticket. Buy a ticket, show a ticket.

Niall: 6:43

It's a classic in Vietnam, they have two people for one job. So you go buy your ticket, and we've done it where it's literally a metre later, then you give the ticket to somebody else, and then they check it off and they let you go. It could be the same person doing that job. Watch out. So we're going to do a trip by ourselves, and this is the reason why. Because we didn't want to be on with a whole bunch of other people. We got on. Hi, donkey. Oi! Hey, easy. We are on our way to the Phong Nha cave.

Adrie: 7:15

So the cave is only accessible by boat. Once you get there, the boat goes in the cave. Then there's another cave, a dry cave that's above Phong Nha cave called Tien Son cave. Apparently it's quite a bit of a walk up, so a lot of the locals don't do it. But we're close. Oh, this is quite nice, so we'll do that. The whole trip should take us about three or four hours. And then we'll boat back. Oh my

Niall: 7:41

god! Oh my god, it

Adrie: 7:44

went straight over my head! I know! You can

Niall: 7:55

touch it? Oh my god. Oh my god. That's it? Okay, come on.

Adrie: 8:08

He just

Niall: 8:08

flicked it away. It's

Adrie: 8:10

still there! He touched the back of the boat. He

Niall: 8:42

did? I just about shit myself. I don't normally get that jumpy with spiders and whatnot, but oh my God, that thing was huge. And then it moved and it went. to the other side and then went back to the other side and jumped all over. Adrian was, uh, not having a good time. Neither was I. That is the biggest bike that I've ever seen in my life. So I saw on the gate, they called this the home of Kong. And I normally film some of the King Kong movie up here. I'm not exactly sure exactly where, but we are here in winter time. And it's not that cold. I think the temperature right now is like 90 degrees. We're used to 40 degrees every day in Saigon. It's not too cold, but it's super eerie and misty. There's a tiny bit of rain. So we did the video recently with Linda Beck, and there was a comment in that book that Vietnamese women are badass. And then there was some negative pushback. But Vietnamese women are badass.

Adrie: 10:02

Every single one of these operators. Yeah,

Niall: 10:04

they're all women pushing this boat. Linda mentioned how, you know, lots of construction workers were women and that was amazing, and some of the comments were like, you know, it's because they're poor, that's not amazing. Take out the socio economic factors. Vietnamese women are badass. They don't have to be doing this. They could be doing other jobs. They're not being forced to row a boat. And men could be doing this as well, but it's all women. And we've been in Ninh Binh, right? What's that? Checked what he did up there, where they roll with their feet, right? That was incredible as well. So, I stand by my comment, being these women are badass.

Noise: 10:41

This cave is huge

Niall: 10:43

Yeah

Noise: 10:44

Got like a short entrance, but once you're inside, it's huge.

Niall: 10:46

Big pop quiz? Yeah Stalactites or stalagmites? Which one is on the roof?

Adrie: 10:53

Sic S stalactites.

Niall: 10:56

You say S stalactites?

Adrie: 10:57

Yeah.

Niall: 10:58

Not S stalactites.

Adrie: 10:59

S stalactites. come from the ceiling.'cause there's a C in it.

Niall: 11:03

No, no. But just the pronunciation. We say stoic tights. You say S stalactites makes it sound like intergalactic.

Adrie: 11:10

Yeah. Intergalactic planetary in here. Yeah.

Noise: 11:20

You know how much rowing. 12 more humans, 10 more humans on this. That's much more difficult.

Niall: 11:26

Yeah, right. It's getting hot and I don't blame her. Is that like the mean? I'm so bad at this stuff. This is where you need to go. This is the lion here.

Adrie: 11:51

Okay. It's a big lion.

Niall: 11:53

Yeah, right.

Adrie: 11:55

I see it.

Noise: 11:56

You see it? Oh, yeah, yeah. The whole body. Yeah.

Niall: 12:00

I think so. How

Noise: 12:01

many, how many minutes? Um, 15 minutes. 15 minutes. We go out to Tien Son. We go

Ticket Seller: 12:15

out to Tien Son.

Adrie: 12:18

Tien

Ticket Seller: 12:19

Son. We

Adrie: 12:21

go out

Ticket Seller: 12:22

to Tien Son. Where

Adrie: 12:31

do we get the boat? Holy

Niall: 12:38

moly. What does that mean, a bike is?

Noise: 12:50

Well, the one we were just in, we had to get to by water, so presumably, the opposite of that.

Adrie: 12:57

So quiet. Mm

Noise: 13:11

hmm. It's really peaceful.

Niall: 13:24

Alright, so we've just done, what's it called, Tien Son Cave.

Music: 13:28

Yep.

Niall: 13:29

Mmm.

Music: 13:30

That's mine.

Niall: 13:31

I did not realize that was yours, Adria got hot. Vietnamese coffee. So the funny thing is where you come out, I felt bad I wanted to get something to eat or drink here because you know these poor women are here all day and if you walk by and you don't buy anything and then the next person walks by and doesn't buy anything they don't make any money and to be honest there's more people here than I realized there's a few people have gone by most of them haven't bought anything but the funny thing is we get here And we're like, okay, we'll get a Cafe Suida. And then the woman who's just over there, who has another restaurant, she starts yelling at us like, Hello, hello, you want a coffee? Come here, come here. She's literally trying to steal the customers from the place next door. And I was like, whoa, just calm down. I think they probably all work together. You think so? They all share the money? Alright, that cave was incredible. I didn't film as much as I'd like. Equipment problem, overheated. Gimbal stopped working. Battery was nearly running. Camera was nearly running out of battery.

Music: 14:23

You should flip it, man, and just be like, it was so beautiful. I just didn't want to take away from the recording.

Niall: 14:28

But we've done two caves already. Dong, Ti, and Sun was the dry cave. I'm looking at, I'm looking at the label here so I get it right. It's got a signpost. Oh yeah, we gotta go. So we booked in. Ben gave us another piece of amazing advice. So there's a place called The Pub with Cold Beer. That is the name of it. The Pub with Cold Beer. You can find it on Google. And Ben said it's because it never used to have cold beer and then he encouraged them to put their beer in the fridge back in 2007 or something. That's a long time ago. So now they have cold beer. That's the name. Which would

Adrie: 15:00

be important on a hot day. Summer Day. Today, not so much. Yeah,

Niall: 15:04

true. But what we noticed on the menu at the Fong Nha Farmstay, Homestay, Fong Nha Homestay, What is a farmstay?

Music: 15:12

Farmstay.

Niall: 15:12

Fong Nha Farmstay is, I found this funny, I meant to tell you this last night. So on the menu, you get the menu for dinner, and then it says, pre order the chicken.

Adrie: 15:24

Two hours.

Niall: 15:25

They can hear me. Fong Nha Farmstay, Dum Roi.

Duck Stop: 15:29

You come bet, uh, farm steak. Farm

Niall: 15:32

steak. Farm

Duck Stop: 15:33

steak. Yeah, yeah. Farm Steak, uh, Phong Nhat.

Niall: 15:37

Yeah, yeah,

Duck Stop: 15:38

yeah. And Ben Mitchell.

Niall: 15:41

Ben Mitchell. You know him? Ben Mitchell. Ha, ha, ha, everybody knows Ben. He's been here for so long. But the only thing you made me laugh, it said pre order the chicken.

Adrie: 15:51

Two hours in advance. Two

Niall: 15:52

hours in advance. But you didn't get told that until you got handed the menu for dinner. So I was like, how would you know to pre order this? To be

Adrie: 15:58

fair, I think it's more like, you're like, oh, that looks good. If you're there for lunch, you might order it for dinner.

Niall: 16:05

Fair enough. We saw it last night, we might

Adrie: 16:07

order it for tonight.

Niall: 16:08

Fair enough.

Adrie: 16:09

Like

Niall: 16:09

Because most people

Adrie: 16:11

aren't really just going there for like one meal, it's pretty

Niall: 16:14

funny. But so Ben has recommended we go to the pool, the pub with known, I can't even say it right, the pub with cold beer. So Ben recommended that we pre order the chicken because it takes like 45 minutes there he said, he said it's like a local Vietnamese dish. Funny thing is about being out here as well is we're from Saigon, we get western food all the time. And Ben was like, Oh, you should get the burgers and the pizza. And we're like, no, we don't want burgers and pizza. We can get that all the time. We want Vietnamese food. To be fair,

Adrie: 16:40

he was suggesting we go to his other restaurant. And the curry we had at his, at the farmstay last night was really good. Oh, I'm

Niall: 16:49

sure the food I imagine

Adrie: 16:50

the food is top notch. But we

Niall: 16:51

wanted local food. So anyway, long story short, Ben has pre ordered the chicken for us, which that's the first time I've ever had food pre ordered. that far in advance, maybe in a bar, like we're going to go get chicken. Point is we have to leave. It's one o'clock. We've got to go back.

Adrie: 17:06

Also, the point is he said better to order it for one. And if you're late, then it's there and it's ready for you as opposed to showing up and it's not ready and you have to wait or you can't get it. So it would be ready at one. We're definitely not going to make one, but it'll be ready for us when we get there. And we'll let you know how

Niall: 17:26

it is. Café sur. Nong Lam, Nong Lam, which is, Nong Lam, which means good, delicious, ah ha, thank you,

Adrie: 17:35

where are you from?

Niall: 17:37

Uh, I'm from Scotland, Scotland, yeah, no, nobody knows Scotland, everybody knows, so,

Duck Stop: 17:46

Germany,

Niall: 17:47

no, so, England, and, Germany, no, no, not Germany, England, Scotland. How many bikes? How

Duck Stop: 17:55

many bikes? Ah! Eh? 48.

Niall: 17:59

48? 48. Ah. 42.

Duck Stop: 18:03

Ah,

Niall: 18:06

28.

Duck Stop: 18:08

28? Baby. Baby?

Niall: 18:10

Ah, your mom and baby? 50. 50? 50. Năm mưi ngàn. Cm ơn. Cm ơn em. Em?

Adrie: 18:27

Ch.

Niall: 18:28

Cm ơn

Adrie: 18:30

ch.

Niall: 18:31

No? Cm ơn em. Cm ơn

Adrie: 18:37

ch. Cm ơn

Niall: 18:40

em. Thank you. Bye bye.

Adrie: 18:42

Bye bye.

Niall: 18:44

Bye bye. That was about as much Vietnamese as we know. We still didn't get it right. Bao Nhu is how much? Bao Nhu Toi, how many years? If you heard that, I said Bao Nhu Toi and she had no idea what I said. Then her friend went Bao Nhu Toi and she instantly understood what I was saying. It is that difficult. What did you

Adrie: 19:02

say at first, toy?

Niall: 19:03

I just said, Baw New Toy, Baw New Toy.

Adrie: 19:06

Baw New Toy? And she

Niall: 19:07

had no idea what I was saying. And then her daughter was like, Baw New Toy! And she's like, Oh! Baw Muay Tam, I think she said. She's 48 years old. And

Adrie: 19:17

28.

Niall: 19:18

Her daughter's 28. They were mother and daughter. So, chi is like an older woman. It's a pronoun. Here they have a million pronouns. We have like two in the UK. The West. But anyway, pronouns. She is an older woman. Em is a younger woman or a younger person than you. So it can be a male. That is as far as I know with pronouns. But there are a lot of them.

Adrie: 19:40

You know Anne?

Niall: 19:41

Oh, Anne as well.

Adrie: 19:43

Like, older man. Or like, man.

Niall: 19:46

Has the spider gone? What's your name? My name is Tenzi. Tenzi? My name is Nguyen. Nguyen? Niall. If you're thinking of starting your own podcast and you don't know where to begin, then get in touch with me. Not only do I make a Vietnam podcast, I make Smarter Podcasting and I run Seven Million Bikes Podcasts where we help people make the best podcast possible. If you want to start a podcast, book a free discovery call with me and I can check you through very quickly what you need to do, how I can help you and how we can help you make the best podcast possible. So get in touch. The link is in the show notes. Okay, we're here at the pub with cold beer. It's got the sign right there. and we're not really sure what's happening. We think Ben has ordered us a chicken. We've got to give two hours notice, but

Noise: 20:36

we have

Niall: 20:38

a feeling we have to like kill the

Noise: 20:39

chicken. Where are we going? What are

Niall: 20:43

we doing? I have no idea what is happening. We'd rather kill him the chicken or the chicken is killing us. I'm not sure which one.

Noise: 20:49

Continue because I thought we pre ordered it so it'd be ready when we came.

Niall: 20:52

Yeah, me too. Okay, so let's just see what they do.

Adrie: 21:02

Wait, wait,

Niall: 21:04

wait. No, we want. So, no, no, come, come.

Adrie: 21:10

Yeah, no,

Niall: 21:10

no, we don't want this. Why are you

Adrie: 21:11

saying no?

Niall: 21:11

I'm not, we don't want this. We want the chicken ready for now. I think they're going to kill this chicken and then cook it and we eat it. You want me to give two hours notice? Ben said he was going to book it for one. We're here at 1. 30. We don't want to wait two hours to eat. So it's okay, come. There's been a bit of confusion. Ben said he was going to book a chicken meal for us that would be ready at one or 1. 30. We thought we were just going to show up to our chicken. So we thought our meal was going to be ready for one o'clock. We're going to show up, have some grilled chicken. We've shown up. There's an American couple up there. They're like, oh, you're here for the experience. They bring us out the back here, which you've just seen on the video.

Noise: 21:43

Oh my God. He's about to chop it.

Niall: 21:45

Oh my goodness. And so it turns out that they are. Preparing the chicken right now. That I have never seen anything like this before. I've never even heard of this. So if you are squeamish and you don't like meat, you know, we don't like seeing your meat being cooked. Uh, and look away now.

Music: 22:06

Should be gentle.

Niall: 22:08

So he has just slit the throat of the chicken and drained the blood out. Oh, it's still wriggling and making noise. The

Noise: 22:33

whale was a bit vegetarian.

Niall: 22:37

Well, we were vegetarians, I was a vegetarian for 10 years, but for the exact opposite of this, because of like factory farming, this is as close, no, I was going to say as close, this is farm to table. Well,

Adrie: 22:47

that is true. It's so hard to watch.

Niall: 22:52

So that is the duck, the head. That was attacked a minute ago. Now we have a dead chicken ready to eat. Well, not ready to eat, ready to be prepared to eat. Okay, so I'm a bit queasy. I was not expecting this experience at all. We've just literally showed up here expecting a chicken meal was going to be prepared for us and we were going to just sit down and have some grilled chicken. There's 45 prep time, 45 minute prep time. We saw it at Phong Nha. Farmstay did the, there was a two hour wait, we assumed that was just, that was as long as it took. That probably means they're gonna go and get the chicken, kill it and cook it. So I'm actually a little bit queasy right now, I don't, I don't do well with blood, I don't do well, I don't eat steak or anything like that, I just eat chicken cooked. I'm a spoiled person, we buy the chicken breast and we cook it. I am actually quite a bit nauseous right now. Do you

Noise: 24:24

need to take a filming break?

Niall: 24:25

No it's okay. This is a really cool experience, I've never had anything as close to this in my life, we weren't expecting it at all. I do feel a bit nauseous that we're going to eat that. Like, I love chicken and I know it comes from somewhere, but I've never seen where my meat comes from.

Adrie: 24:42

He's taking the feathers off.

Niall: 24:46

So we just pour boiling water over it, which I assume then helps get the feathers off quicker. I'm like shaking a little bit, I'm so queasy! One of the things is, uh, Explore, sponsoring our travel series, and one of the things I love on the things that we put in the blurb at the beginning of the podcast is traveling is all about those spontaneous moments. And this couldn't be more spontaneous, and it is so true. That is one of the best things about traveling. Yeah, so one of the best things about traveling, even though we live in Vietnam, we are traveling right now, we are tourists. It is those spontaneous moments, the people you meet that you never expect to meet. The amount of people we've met when we've been traveling over the years that we're still in touch with to this day. Like Nick that we just did a video with that we met, he was friends with somebody that we met in a random bar one time in Saigon and it ended up becoming friends with them. So it is these like crazy moments. We've got to, that's why I was like, right, let's just film this. Let's do it.

Adrie: 25:52

Embrace it.

Niall: 25:52

Even though I feel a bit nauseous right now. I was like, we've got to do it because it is one of these crazy, this is as spontaneous and as crazy as we've ever experienced, right? Make a feather jacket, feather boa.

Noise: 26:27

Might go with my chicken in that again.

Niall: 26:28

I think this is the least expected thing that has ever happened to us. And I can see here she's got the hot coals ready. Do you love chicken wings?

Noise: 26:52

It's so fast.

Niall: 26:55

Ooh, is this garlic toy? I love the garlic.

Adrie: 27:02

Man, it goes from a living creature to like delicious food so quickly.

Noise: 27:09

It's

Ticket Seller: 27:13

basic.

Noise: 27:19

You're so scared. Come, come.

Niall: 27:21

I know. Just like that, as Adri said, from alive to being cooked in like 10 minutes. That is amazing.

Noise: 27:36

Some really fresh, maybe the freshest chicken we've ever eaten.

Niall: 27:39

Not maybe, a hundred percent the freshest chicken we've ever eaten. All right, so I guess now all to do is go and get a beer. Alright, our food has come out. This is literally farm to table. Oh, this was the green sauce. Spicy. Is this fermented tofu? No. Oh, it's peanut. It's like satay. At least they didn't give us the chicken feet or the chicken head or the chicken neck, which is all stuff that people in Vietnam eat. I'm so hungry, this is so amazing. It

Adrie: 28:29

smells so good.

Niall: 28:31

So my initial shock has worn off.

Adrie: 28:33

Now you're just like, Mmm, food! Thank you! Come on.

Niall: 28:39

Alright, Adri, you go first.

Adrie: 28:40

I wish you could put smells on video.

Niall: 28:43

Do you have the first taste?

Adrie: 28:45

Of the chicken. Look at that. That's a

Music: 28:50

little tough.

Niall: 28:51

Oh no, is it? It's like gata.

Music: 28:53

Mmm, free range. Mmm, free range. What part

Niall: 28:57

of the chicken are you eating, do you know?

Music: 28:59

It's white.

Niall: 29:00

No, but is it like the leg, the thigh?

Adrie: 29:02

It's not a leg. Breast? Maybe a breast?

Niall: 29:06

Alright, get a bit of sauce now.

Adrie: 29:09

I don't like eating on camera, I'm not used to this. Let's go with the green. The

Niall: 29:20

green sauce, it's like that bottled green sauce that you get.

Adrie: 29:23

Maybe. More flavourful than that.

Niall: 29:27

I'm gonna go with the veggies first. I think it's Robyn's. I'm just

Adrie: 29:30

gonna go in with the veggies

Niall: 29:32

first. Mmm. What

Adrie: 29:33

happened? Thank

Niall: 29:37

you.

Adrie: 29:37

Alright, we've been served,

Niall: 29:41

as they call it, happy water or rice wine. One

Adrie: 29:43

more, one more.

Niall: 29:44

We have some new friends with us but they're not gonna be on the video and that's fine. So we're gonna chills on new friends.

Adrie: 29:50

Yes.

Niall: 30:03

Lamb. Thank you.

Adrie: 30:08

He's very happy.

Niall: 30:10

We're gonna eat as much of this as we can. I don't know how much, but oh my goodness. It is delicious. This is like a peanut sa sauce. What is this? More peanuts?

Noise: 30:20

Just peanuts.

Niall: 30:20

Just more, just peanuts. Some sort of green sauce that is delicious. We've just had some happy wine. And some sort of vegetables from the garden that we think Sweet potato flowers?

Adrie: 30:31

Greens.

Niall: 30:32

Sweet potato greens?

Adrie: 30:33

Yeah, it's like the plant of the sweet potato.

Niall: 30:36

Whatever it is, it's delicious. It's got garlic in it as well. This is amazing. I can't believe this chicken was alive like 20 minutes ago. And we saw it being killed. One of the coolest experiences ever. very much chicken. Thank you for cooking. And uh, we'll let you know how we got on with it. We'll see how much we can eat. Alright, we've just found the biggest ladder. Gigi's already struggling. Apparently it's going to give an amazing viewpoint over the Bong Lai Valley. Easy man,

Adrie: 31:03

easy. I'm filming it just in case you fall so I can lift you up.

Niall: 31:10

Woo! This is the Bong Lai Valley apparently. Woah, this

Adrie: 31:15

is pretty cool. I

Niall: 31:17

don't have this strap on so don't worry. Oh my god, why are you telling me that? Now this is the thing that happens. Everywhere we go, I drive the bike and Adria gets to just sit and enjoy the view and I have to look straight ahead of me because we're on some dodgy bridge or dodgy road that if I take my eyes off the road for a second, Oh! We're gonna

Adrie: 32:02

like crash. I'm enjoying holding

Niall: 32:06

the DJI.

Adrie: 32:08

DJI. Hello!

Niall: 32:10

So now we're going to the duck massage place, or what's it called?

Adrie: 32:15

It's called the duck stop.

Niall: 32:16

The duck stop. which we read some mysterious comment, not comments, like descriptions of it. We don't really know what it is. We heard something about a duck massage. I don't know if that means you let the ducks walk all over your back. I don't know if you can eat duck there, but we're going to go check it out. And yeah, like Ben described when I first met him on the podcast, this is such, he said it as well. It's the real Vietnam quote unquote, which does sound like it's all wanky when you see that. It's not completely untouched, but it's about as untouched as you can get for a touristy area. It's as real as you can get. And Ben talked a lot about the benefits to the local population as well is incredible. So obviously over touristing is a problem and it can be bad, but right now this place is under tourist and the benefits are immense and there's so much natural beauty to see. So if you want to come to see some of Vietnam that's not on the main tourist route that's a little bit of a hidden gem, then I would definitely get yourself to Phong Nha. Are you Chicago

Duck Stop: 33:29

Police? Yes, and welcome to Duckswell. You've

Niall: 33:36

probably thrown bread to ducks while down at the pond before, but have you ever had an army of feathered followers flock to you for their daily feed? Have you ever wondered what it felt like to have a bunch of hungry beaks nibble seed from you? Probably not. It may just be your best day ever, or be your worst day ever. Say hello to Duck Stop's other family member, Mr. Donald Trump, a friendly buffalo who was used to pull the timber in the jungle or plow in the rice field all day long. He now lives happily with his new easy job, loving nothing more than to give you a little cuddle in the middle of the rice fields. Do you want a cuddle from Mr. Donald Trump?

Adrie: 34:08

He's pretty cute. And

Niall: 34:09

make friends with him by the way. You feed him some grass and bananas. The buffalo is also an important part of Vietnamese life. The water buffalo is a traditional symbol of Vietnam, representing bravery, happiness, prosperity. Buffaloes also play a very important role in Vietnamese agriculture, being a farmer's most valued possession and often treated like a member of the family. Let's meet Donald Trump. So this is the second thing of the day, we don't actually know what we're doing. We've shown up at somewhere called the Duck Stop. The languages online are pretty mysterious. We've been made to put these shoes on, so now I'm kind of guessing what is going to be happening. This is the most amount of ducks I've ever been around.

Duck Stop: 35:15

Okay, one more time,

Adrie: 35:21

get ready, here we go, come on! Oh, my. Oh, my God! Say, quack, quack! Quack, quack!

Niall: 35:57

Oh my goodness. I guess that's what a duck mouth feels like.

Duck Stop: 36:32

I'm doing so well, yeah.

Adrie: 36:35

I'm doing so well. Oh, yes. Look what I've done, man. Okay. You can't stop me now, now. Shake, shake, shake, quack, quack. Hey, quack, quack. Hey. Keep going, yeah. Keep going, quack, quack. Quack, quack. Quack, quack. This way! Quack, quack! I could do this forever. Quack, quack! Hey!

Duck Stop: 37:16

What's up? Hey! Okay, you ready, mate? Yeah, yeah, hold on. Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack,

Adrie: 37:26

quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack,

Niall: 37:32

quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack,

Adrie: 37:33

quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, qu Quack, quack! You ready?

Duck Stop: 37:57

One more foot ahead!

Adrie: 38:02

Attack! One more! Attack! Attack! That was so

Niall: 38:12

little! So this is what somebody told us, that you get a foot massage by the ducks. Oh my god.

Duck Stop: 38:24

Follow your feet like a bloody. Like this? Your feet like

Adrie: 38:29

a

Duck Stop: 38:30

bloody. Oh

Adrie: 38:31

my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. It's so ticklish. Hold up! Hold up! Oh

Niall: 38:51

my god. How does it feel?

Adrie: 38:58

Uh, like, I have 50 tucks on my V Stand. Oh my god! What the fuck! Ha ha! Last one. I'm dying on a kick! Oh, f OK, now everybody try it. I have never laughed so hard in my life. I love all animals, this is wild!

Niall: 40:17

He goes silent. Thank you.

Adrie: 40:27

Cheeky monkey. Cheeky

Niall: 40:31

monkey. So what are we doing now, Adri?

Adrie: 40:36

We're going to see Donald Trump. Mr. Donald

Niall: 40:39

Trump, I think.

Adrie: 40:40

The future American president.

Niall: 40:44

Again.

Adrie: 40:44

In buffalo form. In

Niall: 40:45

buffalo form.

Adrie: 40:47

The reincarnate.

Niall: 40:48

So we're going to go and see the buffalo Donald Trump who works way harder than the real Donald Trump. Oh we're gonna feed him.

Adrie: 41:01

I

Niall: 41:03

mean literally if you just held McDonald's like this Donald Trump would appear and just start eating. Same same but different. And Donald Trump tilled all these fields, apparently. Hey, man, wap

Adrie: 41:13

here, mate! Yeah! Ready, mate? Yeah! Buffalo, eh? Donald Trump, my farm, married wife. Eat a lot, lot of children. Very big sheep. Not very big. This is my first time riding a buffalo. I'm riding a buffalo. Hey, hey, one more. Oh. Someone's hungry. Someone's hungry. Lovely. How old is Donald Trump? Oh, ten. Ten. Careful. Yeah, yeah. This

Niall: 42:25

is a proper lot of the Rings Vage, this is. I don't want to do it.

Adrie: 42:34

I have to.

Niall: 42:36

The sauna's there, can you go straight in the

Adrie: 42:38

sauna? Oh, yeah.

Niall: 42:38

Yeah.