A Funny Expedition To Hang En And The Largest Cave in the World - Son Doong

By Romping & Nguyening

Now on to what you’ve all been waiting for – THE LARGEST CAVE IN THE WORLD! I’m going to start with 2 things:

1. Hang is the Vietnamese word for cave.

2. Pictures never do justice.

INTRO

Son Doong cave was discovered by Khanh Ho in 1991, but wasn’t thoroughly searched and surveyed until 2009 by the British Cave Research Association, led by Howard and Deb Limbert who are now in Phong Nha full time to help run the Son Doong tours. Its first year of tourism began in August 2013, with the limit of ~200 tourists per year.

Our tour consists of 2 scientists (including Deb Limbert herself), 2 National Park rangers, 1 Vietnamese English-speaking guide, Khanh Ho (the discoverer of the cave), and 24 porters (like sherpas) are all there to accompany the 8 tourists on the expedition. In sum, there are 30 others needed for the 8 tourists, for a total of almost 40 people! For these days, the 24 Phong Nha Vietnamese porters carry 35-40 kg sacks on their backs (filled with food to feed everyone, tents, sleeping bags, and our belongings), traverse the uneven path, climb and crawl over and under sharp rocks and steep hills, and have the campsites ready for us upon arrival. Despite their undaunting size, their strength was remarkable.

DAY 1: HANG EN

After we bid farewell to our last breath of air-conditioned air from the van, we trekked about 10 km through jungle and river valley to our first campsite, located in Hang En, aka Swallow Cave. By Swallow, I mean the bird (they’re actually Swifts, but the name stuck), and the reason why it is called Swallow Cave is because tens or hundreds of thousands of swifts fly in and around the cave (fun fact: they use echolocation — like bats — to fly in the dark cave). In order to get to Hang Son Doong, you actually have to go through a cave (Hang En) to get there! It’s basically a cave within a cave. 

The porters begin the journey first:

There is 1 village in Phong Nha National Park. It is an extremely poor village of 28 people, half whom are children. They build their own homes, raise their own livestock, and grow their own crops. Occasionally they can hitch a ride into the nearest town of Phong Nha, which is about an hour away. 

These villagers were TINY! Look how giant I look next to this woman:

Some nice rest stops:

And finally, our destination: Hang En! It is not the largest cave in the world, but its size is still magnificent. You can easily book a trekking Swallow cave tour if you are unable to do Son Doong. Check out Hang En below. 

Chris brought a cord so he could turn it into a clothesline for our wet clothes. Yay!

DAY 2: SON DOONG

After breakfast, we trekked through and exited Hang En to make our trekking Son Doong!

Here are some photos exiting Hang En: 

A short break after hiking uphill in the tiresome heat: 

The entrance to Son Doong, the smallest cave entrance into the largest cave in the world! There was a lot of crawling, roping, and some real downward vertical caving involved. Fortunately the guides were there to help us descend into the dark cave. 

We trekked through the dark for a while, slowly climbing over large and small boulders and crossing small rivers. Finally, we arrived at our second campsite of the trip, which was located near the first roof collapse of Son Doong. This is what the campsite looked like from a distance:

We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out and exploring the campsite, anxiously waiting for tomorrow’s famous views and photo opportunities.

DAY 3: SON DOONG'S JUNGLE

The first and second days were “wet” days, meaning we crossed many streams and rivers so our shoes, socks, and feet were wet the whole day. The third day was a dry day – no rivers to cross! However, there were many sharp rocks and boulders we had to climb over and under, but we were rewarded with some of the most amazing landscapes imaginable.

Here we are exiting camp toward the first roof collapse. 

Look at how sharp these rocks are. We had fun going under and over them! 

Up and up we went! We were rewarded with lush greenery along beautiful “terraces” carved out by flooded rivers. During the rainy season, there are no tours in Son Doong because the flooded rivers practically fill up the cave, carving out wonderful but sharp rocks and boulders. The rivers later recede, and sunlight pours in from the collapsed ceiling to give life to the jungle within the cave.

From the top of the hill, you could look down to the side where you last stood before the climb: 

Or look up:

Walk a bit further up past the trees, and there’s more playthings: 

After hanging out on these mounds, we proceeded to finally go DOWN. Below the mounds were amazing formations carved from the flooded rivers:

After we finished climbing up and over these formations, we turned around and were treated to the climax of the whole expedition, one of the most famous views of Sơn Đoòng. Those mounds that we just hung out on? Well, those mounds are the tops of the hills in the photos below. We enjoyed our lunch here.

We spent quite some time here, admiring the scenery and taking more photos. Mist would quickly appear and dissipate, creating an eery atmosphere. We continued with the trek through the dark cave, and when we saw another sliver of light in the distance, we knew we were nearing the second roof collapse, the site of our final campsite. See the tents below?

Going down is kind of scary, more so because of my fear of heights.

Our third and final campsite! 

The tents lit up at night:

Conquer Son Doong the Biggest Cave in Vienam

After three hiking hours, the cavern of Son Dong cave eventually appears right in front of our eyes. Standing there, we can feel clearly how different the inside temperature from to outside is. The biggest dome cave can hold a skyscraper up to 40 storey building

The whole world was getting overwhelmed with the biggest, nature-made cave after the British Cave Research Association (BCRA) announcing their discovery. Till this time, however, Vietnamese explorers don’t have enough competence to trek into Son Doong cave; even professional trekkers showed up their discomposure. They can dive without oxygen supplying equipment into underground rivers, or drop themselves down from cliff by ropes but they are very unconfident with professional accessories.

Son Doong Cave

Our current items included cheap, regular cameras, fabric boots and plastic water bottles in order to pass through no footprint jungles or unimaginable mountain peaks. To have amazing photo collections, BCRA and BBC news, NHK later on had to bring with hundred kilograms of equipment from electric suppliers to diving suits or professional cameras to climbing supporting items ect

The entire area is in the core of Phong Nha National Park which is already well-known for its natural beauty and server records of Phong Nha cave and Paradise cave. Son Doong cave now is the one keeping the world records of the biggest cave dome which can hold a 40 storey high building.

The story of Son Doong started since 1999. When a local man, Ho Khanh, successfully led the team of BCRA trekking to Son Doong inside. Then, the magnificent beauty of stalagmite, underground rivers and sand dunes ect were all become famous globally.

This time, on our Son Doongcave trek expedition, we met Ho Khanh again. He was taking a researching team to study Son Dong botanical system. His team was moving quickly through dirty, muddy trails and the further they go their higher the slope.

Trekking Son Doong Cave

To reach to the cave mouth, we had to hike along shallow stream with hard rocks, then climb up to mountain slope with countless sharp stones rising up from ground like knives. Even with a small wrong step, you can fall down. The slopes continue to another seeming never ends. You will feel nearly out of breath and each foot step is a burden. If there were no fellow passengers encourage words, some might give up at half way.

After 3 hours hiking, Son Doong cave finally shown up in our eye view – mysterious and dim scenery exactly as described by The Lu writer in his book “Gold and Blood”. We had to move along inclined mountain slopes with thousands of rocky fins stacking layers to layers to reach to cave entrance. Those rocky fins may be created by natural sedimentation from rivers pouring down.

Standing at the cave mouth, we can clearly feel the temperature difference between inside and outside. According to local words, Ho Khanh, many years ago, also felt this cold air stream then followed it to discover Son Doong cave. This is strong, cold wind which is telling that they come from a deep, big air space.

The scenery when we were walking inside was not similar to things appeared on Internet. Because of just dozen meter walk, the darkness covered everything. Although the light from the touch on our forehead hats just helped to see in a few meter far, the wonder of stalagmite was stunning. In million years of time, water has made a wonder world inside Truong Son range, and this creation is still on progress.

Trekking Son Doong Cave

At the cave base, in flat places, there were thousands of small, ball stones which were the products of calcium sedimentation around an initial core and the slow flow of water. This process is quite similar to the creation of pearl. Furthermore, there were many animal fossils close to the entrance but we did not know that was tiger or other species.

Keep our trail inside the huge cave until we reach to the abyss dividing Son Doong cave into two parts – named “Vietnam Wall”. Standing at the abyss’ edge and dropping a stone into it, we only heard the sound reflection after minutes. This is actually an 80 meter deep abyss and our journey must stop there. There were no one can across this abyss except professional caving explorers.

Truly different from visiting Phong Nha or Paradise cave which are interfered to the ground to be flatter and installed with lighting system, each step in Son dong cave is a true adventure. The high humidity in atmosphere made our eyes hardly see and our regular cameras could not take wonderful photos as in magazines. Sometime, I felt our trek to Son Dong inside was similar to playing in casino. The time was passing as quickly as we didn’t even recognize it.

After lunch, we went back in hurry. The journey was similar to the way in. The difference was we were exhausted and all wet by water and our own sweat. Hiking on the same route, we reached to Ho Chi Minh trail by the sun set its last light. The third adventure to Son Doong was completed successfully and luckily. Our Son Doong exploration was just a trial and Quang Binh province will do more research to do adventure tours to Son Doong possibly starting since mid of 2014.