Photo by Simon Dunne

Ho Khanh’s discovery of Son Doong is the stuff of legend. As a young man searching for timber, he was caught in a tropical storm. He took cover in the mouth of a cave. Entering the grotto he discovered a cavern so huge that he was overwhelmed.

Years later he tried to rediscover the spot. In 2008, on his second attempt, he found the entrance and went inside. A few months on he came back with British speleologist Howard Limbert and a British cave exploration team.

In August of this year, Khanh and Howard led the first tourist expedition to Son Doong. The seven-day trek took six tourists into the confines of the world’s largest cave, supported by a team of 23 porters and guides. The trip cost US$3,000 (VND63 million) per person, which paid for three nights sleeping in the cave.

Says Howard, “Many people wanted to open up Son Doong for mass tourism. But eventually a proposal was accepted to take through 84 people a year.” The tours run twice a month from February to August

Photo by Vietnam Caving Expedition

The Land of Dinosaurs

Containing the tallest stalagmite in the world — the formation is 80m high — the cave is home to 300 million-year-old fossils, while one section, known as The Wall of Vietnam, is over 200m high.

“Some of the skylights are 200m to 250m high,” adds Howard. “The addition of light creates a small jungle in the cave.” One such jungle area has been named The Garden of Eden.

So big are these mammoth, sunlit caverns that, as journalist Mark Jenkins wrote in the National Geographic, there is “room enough for an entire New York City block of 40-story buildings. There are actually wispy clouds up near the ceiling.”

A member of the exploration team in 2009, he adds, “The tableau could have been created by an artist imagining how the world looked millions of years ago.”

Ben Mitchell was one of the six tourists. “Going to Son Doong was life-changing,” he said. “When I was a kid I saw Mount Everest and later on went to Maasai Mara in Kenya. It was better than the two of them put together.”

Despite the price, the tours are proving popular — they are already fully booked until well into next year. And no wonder. Son Doong is spectacular.

Source: World Vietnam