Bach Ma National Park

I left Hoi An for Bach Ma national park. It took almost 4 hours to get there, which was a bit longer than I expected. We passed through a 6km long tunnel, opened in 2005. This shaved an hour off driving time between Danang and Hue. It bypassed the Hai Van pass, which I wanted to see because it was supposed to have great views but it would have been much more difficult to get transport to use the pass instead of the tunnel.
I arrived at the junction to the park at 5pm. It was a 3km walk from here to the park entrance. I would have taken a moto but no one was giving me a fair price, so I just walked it. At the park entrance I was expecting to find a campsite but the places I was shown to pitch my tent sucked. They were both along the road and beside a parking lot. No privacy or quiet at either one. I wanted to find a better site. I finally found a guy who spoke some english and he pointed me towards the guesthouse, back from the road. I set up my tent here. It was a much better spot, awaying from staring eyes. Staying at the guesthouse was Joe, a 19 year old volunteer from England. He said there was no real campsite here, my guidebook was wrong again. He helped me set up my tent and let me use his hot shower my entire stay here. He also let me use his washing machine. My clothes haven't seen a machine since I left Canada over 3 months ago. I'm a die hard hand washer and don't like to pay to have my clothes washed unless they're super filthy. I gave Joe all my clothes to wash.
Joe had been at Bach Ma for 3 months. His parents arrived to visit him just an hour after I did. They were really nice and all of us ended up spending a lot of time together. They bought my dinner the first night and beers every night. They also brought Joe a lot of high quality chocolate. It seemed like I arrived just in time!