Vietnam - Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Northern Thailand - page 178

Organised tours are an excellent way to explore the park - those run by Phong Nha
Farmstay are recommended (1,000,000d by minibus). Oxalis ( 052-367 7678;
www.oxalis.co.vn ; Son Trach) is a highly professional adventure tour operator specialising in
caving and trekking expeditions; it is the only outfit licensed to conduct tours to Hang Son
Doong.
It's possible to rent a bike and explore the region yourself, though road signs are lack-
ing. But with a sense of adventure, some wheels and a map (ask at Jungle Bar) it's per-
fectly doable.
HANG SON DOONG: WORLD-CLASS CAVE
Ho Khanh, a hunter from a jungle settlement close to the Vietnam-Laos border, would often take shel-
ter in the caves that honeycomb his mountain homeland. He stumbled across gargantuan Hang Son
Doong (Mountain River Cave) in the early 1990s, but the sheer scale and majesty of the principal cav-
ern (more than 5km long, 200m high and, in some places, 150m wide) was only confirmed as the
world's biggest cave when British explorers returned with him in 2009.
The expedition team's biggest obstacle was to find a way over a vast overhanging barrier of muddy
calcite they dubbed the 'Great Wall of Vietnam' that divided the cave. Once they did, its true scale
was revealed - a cave big enough to accommodate a battleship. Sections of it are pierced by skylights
that reveal formations of ethereal stalagmites that cavers have called the Cactus Garden. Some stalag-
mites are up to 80m high. Colossal cave pearls have been discovered, measuring 10cm in diameter,
formed by millennia of drips, as calcite crystals fused with grains of sand. Magnificent rimstone pools
are present throughout the cave.
Hang Son Doong is one of the most spectacular sights in Southeast Asia, and the government only
approved very restricted access to the cave system in June 2013. The only specialist operator permit-
ted (by the Vietnamese president no less) to lead tours here is Son Trach-based Oxalis ( Click here ) .
Son Doong is no day-trip destination, it's in an extremely remote area and the only way to visit is by
booking a seven-day expedition with around 16 porters. It costs US$3000 per person, with a maxim-
um of eight trekkers on each trip.
Is it worth it? Well, National Geographic photographer Carsten Peter, whose photographs first un-
veiled the majesty of the cave to the world (and who has climbed Everest and K2), described it as the
most impressive natural sight in the world.
Note that you may come across tour agencies professing to sell tours of Hang Son Doong on the in-
ternet. The only licensed operator with access is Oxalis. Other agencies promise to take you to Hang
Son Doong but actually set up a trip to Hang En instead (which is mighty impressive, but not Son
Doong).
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