Phong Nha
There's a spot near Phong Nha called 'The Pub With Cold Beer'. The Aussie owner of the guesthouse in the area, a true pioneer of tourism, discovered it a few years back. To this day only 2% of people who come to visit the caves of the national park here are foreigners and nearly all who spend the night stay with him. He was riding his bike on a scorching hot day when he came upon the place and was stunned to find a cold beer on the table. For reasons unknown, in this part of the world drinks are not refrigerated. Even if people have fridges, beers are seldom given a space. So midway through a lazy Sunday kayak trip we stopped in for a few beers and some freshly fire roasted peanuts.
The reason for the owner stocking cold beer is to serve to loggers coming down from the park. Logging has been illegal here for sometime now, it's a national park and a UNESCO protected area but logging has been going on for generations and today it continues in via cat and mouse game with the unarmed rangers versus the armed loggers. Most recently the rangers stationed a man in a hammock along a back trail used by the loggers so the next move is up to them.
Many years ago when famine gripped the area, the brother of the pub's owner was fifteen and went into the forest with a group of loggers in order to make money to feed the family. While they were chopping up a tree to be transported down to the river a tiger began to stalk them. For nights on end they went without sleep while the tiger prowled the edge of their camp. It would appear creeping around the edges of light provided by the fire, silently circling and vanishing. Finally the tiger, as big as a cow, trotted into their midst turned its' head to the side, clamped down on the torso of a young man and disappeared into the dark neither to ever be seen again.
