Introducing the Cast of Our Story Tour Group: Myself - no introduction Justin - friend and English Teacher at my school LeeAnn - friend of Justin from Oregon, USA; legal advocate Aicardo and Elizabeth - couple from Miami, FL, USA; he has a business dealing with pharmaceutical trials; she has an online business (I think) Stephanie - Med Student/Resident for trauma medicine in Atlanta, GA, USA Sanshiro - Japanese Marine Merchant; lives on a boat 6 months out of the year, has stories involving Somalian pirates Rory - Austrailian (Sydney) studying to be a maths teacher Hung - Electrical Engineer from Hanoi, Vietnam Tham - Welcome person from Oxalis - she picks up everyone from the airport/train station and gets them to the first homestay; We were supposed to have a full 10 people but one dropped out at the last minute so she was invited to go on the tour. She had never been in Son Doong before. Oxalis Team: Howard - British Caver who helped discover Son Doong Dat - Vietnamese guide, originally from Hanoi 5 Vietnamese safety assistants including Dang, Quang, Hien, Linh . . . I feel really bad that I can't remember the other name. These guys were in charge of making sure we didn't bust our asses and helped us through the more technical sections of the cave (rappelling, sharp rocks, loose rocks, steep incline/decline, etc) 19 porters who carried all the gear including tents, extra clothes, food, and all our shit (literally, they had to pack out all of our poo). The only one who's name I know is Bien since he played cards with us every night. Chef Cuong - absolutely delicious food the entire trip. Ranger from the National Park - he didn't seem super excited to be there but we're required to have a ranger with the group at all times. Before the cave: We all arrived at the homestay at different times. Justin, LeeAnn and myself did some biking around Phong Nha, ate some good food, had a couple swims in the pool. We only met Rory and Shanshiro before the welcome briefing that evening. At 5:30, we all got on a van together and went to the Oxalis headquarters for our briefing. We got an overview of the cave, what to expect, what injuries to try and avoid, what to make sure we packed in our day bags and what stayed in the dry bags for the porters to carry. We signed our lives away on a release form and chowed down on some delicious dinner. We head back to the homestay with full stomachs ready to leave at 9 am the next morning. Day 1 - Getting to Hang EnIn the morning, we turn in our "after cave bags" and our valuables, eat a hearty breakfast, and load up the van. After picking up Howard, Dat, and our Safety Assistants (SAs), we drive through the mountains to the trail head. Quick things to know about the National Park in Phong Nha: - 0 cell reception - 1 village in a 100 km radius - very little traffic on the 2-3 roads that go through it **Basically, don't go in without a plan So we drive for a bit and stop at a bridge going over the river. From the bridge to the water is about 80 meters (sorry Americans, you'll have to convert to feet yourselves. All measurements given on this tour were in meters). During the rainy season, the water often rises almost to the bridge if not to the bridge itself. This would be why they don't do tours in the rainy season ... ain't nobody signed up to die in a rushing river. Also that river basically fills up the cave you have to go through to even get to Son Doong. We get to the trail head, take a quick pee by the side of the road . . . Literally . . . the jungle is a bit thick and still semi-bomb ridden to go in for a quick pee. And leeches . . . no one wants a butt leech. We head off down a path into the jungle: 10 customers, 2 guides, 5 safety assistants. The porters move at their own pace (which is fast). We hike for a couple of hours before arriving at the one village for 100 kilometers. The village consists of about 40 people, half of those are children. There are about 5 houses, a "school" building, 3 outhouses with squat toilets, and a generator. The school, toilets, and generator are new additions to the village, as is running water. All of these improvements were through the efforts of Oxalis (our tour company). We have lunch in the home of the village elder before continuing our hike. We learn about the flood last year (maybe 2 years ago) that took out the entire village. Since they didn't have electricity, they didn't know the flood was coming and got trapped in the valley. The whole village climbed up the tallest tree in the valley and lived there until the water receded enough to return to the ground. We continue our hike through the jungle, across some fields, and following the river bed. We stop at a shaded pool of water for a swim. The next section of our hike is no shade for over an hour. After the swim, the sun is brutal and I thank god for the occasional cloud or breeze. We see cows and water buffalo belonging to the villagers and hike through a bamboo forest before getting to the back entrance to Hang En. For quick scale reference, we've been able to see the entrance to Hang En for about an hour. Second quick note: "hang" means "cave" in Vietnamese. We take a break as we enter the cave to rehydrate and get lights put onto our caving helmets. Howard tells the story of a flash flood a few years back. Where we entered used to be the camp site until this flood. The water rose very quickly and all the gear had to be abandoned to get to dry land before the water reached the roof. Now we camp by the lake inside the cave instead. Once we all have lights and helmets, we hike through a section of the cave to reach the iconic camping ground. Photo shoot from the middle then some of us hike up to the top of the opening while others go down to the raft to cross the lake. Once we're all across, we all go for a beautiful swim to get off all the dirt and sweat (we won't shower for any of the 4 days). Dressed in clean, dry clothes we hang out until dinner. Dinner each night consists of rice, vegetables, various meat dishes, and vegetarian dishes. Chef Cuong literally cooked like 10 different dishes per night. No one lost weight on this trip. Sometime after dinner, a few of us find ourselves back at the dinner table with some decks of cards. Dat teaches me how to play "Shithead" and thus our nightly routine is born. We started with about 4 people and ended up having to expand to 2 card decks and 7-8 people. Varying levels of English but that's the beauty of cards, it doesn't matter if you are fluent in the other person's language, you all still understand when someone screws you over and calls you shithead. Great bonding experience. . . . Anyways . . . We heard that the moon should be visible through the opening of the cave around 10 pm so we stayed up playing cards until then. Justin set up him camera and tried to get a time lapse of the moon moving across the opening. It was a magical event to experience. Day 2 - Hang En and Son DoongOur first actual cave day begins with a breakfast of pho, instant noodles, and/or french toast. We do one last photo shoot of the camp after climbing up a giant rock hill. Once packed up, we head through Hang En. Honestly ... I don't remember much of Hang En since it got mega trumped by Son Doong later that day. I do remember though coming around some boulders and seeing the exit back into the jungle. .We exited Hang En and began our journey across the jungle again. The journey took us through many, many, many river crossings. During one, my shin decided to make friends with an underwater boulder of sorts and I may have mildly face planted into the water. Scared the shit out of the safety assistants, but I was fine. We took a nice hike up a mountain . . . it just kept going up and up. At the top, we break for lunch and change into long sleeves and long pants (in 38 degree C weather . . . 100 degree F weather) for the descent into Son Doong. The SAs fit us in our harnesses and we hike down to the opening of Son Doong. One at a time, we climb ropes down. For two sections we're hooked into a life line with a belayer. I'm the 4th one down and I am drenched in sweat . . . mostly from nerves. Once everyone is down, we wait for the SAs to come down . . . takes them all of 5 minutes for everyone whereas we took a good 45 minutes or so. As we hike to the campsite for the night at Doline 1 (collapsed section of the cave, open to the real world), we stop for photoshoots at the largest stalagmite in the world, a river crossing and a formation called "hand of dog". We walk past "Trump rock", a rock with a narrow path going around it next to a sheer drop. Should Trump ever decide to visit Hang Son Doong . . . "Hand of Dog"? . . . yes well you see what had happened was . . . someone got the privledge of naming it and called it "Hand of God" but the person writing it down misheard and so now it's "Hand of Dog." Also in Son Doong are "In Dog we Trust" and "Garden of Edam". . . not a religious bunch of cavers . . . We get to the campsite for the night and take a quick break. We have one more "surprise" sight to see. We were told there was a small swimming area . . . We set off down into the cave again and up through a fossil passage that dead ends at a slab of rock. Dat, our guide, says "we're here" . . . I'm like, "where's here?". We take off our helmets, all still very confused, and follow Dang down a rock to this little hole. We quickly realize that this is the entrance into the small swimming area, a slot canyon between slabs of rock. We hear a splash as one of the SAs jumps from the cliff into the canyon so that he can help lead us after we get in. Rory is first in with exclamations of the water being freezing along with other phrases about body parts disappearing. Everyone has their own exclamation as they enter the water (19 degrees C from what we're told . . . which is 68 F . . . which doesn't seem right . . . That water was freezing. Felt colder than Sliding Rock in NC, USA which is 45 degrees C. ). We swim down the canyon for a bit. The water is colder when you move but we quickly adjust. We reach a bit where we can stand (previously no idea how deep it was but could not see the bottom with the lights the SAs had) and turn off all the lights to experience pure darkness. It's Aic's birthday so we sing him happy birthday in English, Vietnamese, Chinese, Spanish, and maybe one other . . . then return to camp. Back at camp we get changed into dry clothes and get hot beverages. After dinner, we again play cards. Our group expanded to 7-9 players. After most other people had gone to bed, Dat taught Justin and I how to play a Northern Vietnamese card game called Attack. I realized while playing it that this is the game my students had been playing when they finish their work early. . . Now I can join in :D Day 3 - Hang Son DoongAfter breakfast we set off towards Doline 1. We were told it would take about an hour to reach it despite how close it seemed. I'm not sure how long it actually took us but it was quite the trek. We climbed under giant boulders, squeezed through gaps in the rocks and arrived at the "James Bond" hole (still not at the doline yet). We have a nice photoshoot then continue our journey across a nice ledge where we must be clipped into ropes then climb up some potentially loose rocks to get into doline 1. We break up into two groups - one goes to see the opening back towards camp and the other does a photoshoot on "Wedding Cake." As we take photos, the sunbeams start coming into the doline, a magical sight to see. The leaves start falling from the trees above and no one can capture this moment via photography. We hike down into the next section of enclosed cave for lunch, viewing the doline from the other side. We do some more photoshoots before hiking towards doline 2 (viewable from the clearing in doline 1 though it's quite a few kilometers away). As we near doline 2, we split into two groups. The first group climbs up the formation we're walking across to be photographers while the other group continues the hike to doline 2. We will become the "models" for their photographs. After our photoshoot, we regroup at the start of doline 2 for our trek across its jungle . . . yes, there's a whole jungle inside this one, which has been dubbed the "Garden of Edam" . . . yes, like the cheese. As we hike, Howard points out the entrance to a second cave. Unfortunately it's blocked by calcite growth. According to him, the meeting of Son Doong and this second cave is what made the roof of doline 2 weak enough to cause the collapse. The cavers who discovered Son Doong think that this second cave may be as big as, if not bigger than, Son Doong. There will be expeditions in the next year or so to look for a proper entrance. From doline 2, we hike down into our last camp. It is set on sand made of powdered limestone. We are warned not to get it wet as it becomes very sticky/tacky. But it does have the added benefit of acting as a desiccant and all the clothes/shoes we leave out overnight are actually dry when we wake up on the last day. . . not that it ended up mattering but it was nice compared to the campsite the night before (nothing dried there). After a short break, we grab just our helmets, lights, and cameras for a short excursion further into the cave. Our last day has potential to be a long one so we do some sight seeing on Day 3 instead of Day 4 to save time. On our excursion we see a formation called "The Dog's Bollocks", giant sand dunes, cave pearls and absolutely gigantic formations that go from floor to ceiling. Dinner is delicious as always. Chef Cuong tries a new dish, fried bananas, which are an instant hit with everyone. For reference, LeeAnn and I had to put aside two pieces for our dessert on our vegetarian plates and ban anyone else from taking them. It was "eat your bananas now or someone else will eat them". . . . We then proceeded to order them for part of our breakfast. As always, cards followed dinner :D We realized Sanshiro hadn't lost a single game in all our nights so we kind of ganged up on him. Day 4 - Great Wall of Vietnam - Exiting Hang Son DoongFor our final day, we have to wear full body harnesses as we hike since we have to exit the cave by climbing the "Great Wall of Vietnam". We hike back past the dog's bollocks, sand dunes, giant formations, and cave pearls. As we descend, we see small blue boats. Normally, these are used to row everyone across the lake which forms in this section of the cave. Currently, it is the dry season so the lake isn't there. We had the pleasure (seriously it was great fun) of hiking through the canyon-y bottom of the lake in the mud. Sometimes we just walk on the mud, sometimes we walk in shallow mud, sometimes we walk through thigh deep mud. I almost lost my shoes about 3 times. Dat somehow managed to keep his sandals on. . . . I don't think I've mentioned it yet but all of the Vietnamese guides, SAs, and porters were wearing red, plastic sandals to go through the cave. Apparently they're super grippy and help you not get foot rot, a big problem if you're in caves almost every day of the month walking through a lot of water. Not recommended for the tourists though as our feet are not used to it but all the Vietnamese are "proper jungle men" whose feet are tough as nails according to Howard. At the end of the "lake", we wash off our shoes so that we will have traction going up the "Great Wall of Vietnam". From what I recall, the Great Wall of Vietnam took us up ~200 meters and we must go up one at a time. Two additional SAs have joined our crew (they hiked in from the end to the wall) to help get us all up. We go up a ladder from the shoe washing station to the bottom of the first tie in point. Dat washes our shoes again, making sure the tread is clean, ties us into the first rope and sets us off on the first section, a 25 meter ladder over blackness . . . not at all terrifying. Before I start up the ladder, I ask Dat whether or not I'll have to wait anywhere on the wall before continuing. I know if I have to stop, I might start panicking a bit. He assures me they time it so that you should't have to wait anywhere if you don't want to. At the top of the ladder, the SA tells me to sit on the top of it and wait a minute . . . Thanks Dat. So here I am, sitting on the top of a ladder over open space focusing very carefully on a bit of rock and my breathing. I get clipped into the next rope after a couple of minutes (or at least what feels like a couple of minutes) and set off up the next, very steep, section (~80-85 degree angle). So this isn't like proper rock climbing where you use both your hands and feet on the rocks, this is more like . . . put your feet on the wall, grab this rope with knots tied in it and haul yourself up. Anyways, I get a bit tired and shaky on this section and need to pause. I feel the next SA tug on my lifeline rope but I'm not ready to move yet so I yell up at him "Mot phut!" ("one minute"). I hear a chuckle and he stops tugging. When I get to the top of that section, I see the SA named Dang who asks if I'm okay as he tells me I need to wait a minute before continuing (thanks Dat). I admit that I'm a bit scared and he follow up with "but are you worried?" . . . like worried is worse than scared? I think it was more like "are you about to have a panic attack on this rock right now?". Once he's assured that I'm fine, he clips me into a new line and I continue up to the next SA, where again I have to wait. At least this time, there's a proper flat section where I can sit for a minute. I get hooked into the last section, less steep (~45-55 degree angle) and try to book it up to the top. I hear Justin asking who I am and can I slow down/pause for a photo . . . umm no, get an action shot :P At the top, I'm shaking and soaked in sweat but I made it. There's a toilet (thank god) and cold drinks that one of the new SAs had brought in for us (amen!). I sit with the others while we watch the others come up the wall. Rory pauses for a photogenic moment, Sanshiro makes it look super easy. When all the guests are at the top, the SAs start coming up as well as some of the porters who had hiked with all our stuff on their backs from the last campsite. All of them, in their little red sandals, make the wall look like a piece of cake. And they don't have a proper life line with belayer like we did, they just have an autolock device hooked from them to the rope. We eat at the top of the wall and then hike out of the cave. We see some odd deer bones on the way out; odd because they were up on a formation, not in an area you would expect a deer to be. The pile of rocks out was super slippery so I, and a few others, were basically hiking up in a sort of bear crawl. As we reach the top, sunbeams start coming into the cave and we see a cloud floating up out of the cave. After a short break, we continue our hike, now through the jungle. We have to leave our helmets on, even outside the cave, due to the sharp rocks which are everywhere on our path. One fall and you could impale yourself or bust your head open. I feel like I'm moving pretty slowly but we supposedly make good time. I only slipped once but caught myself and only twinged my knee a bit (it's fine now). We take a break after the worst of the rocky sections and are allowed to remove our helmets. We continue to hike through the jungle and cross a dry river bed. We hike through a flatter, sandier jungle section then take a break right before the end. The last 15 minutes go fast with the last 100-200 meters being a steep climb up to the road where a cooler of beer, water, and coke is waiting. We get a group photo and many of the guests go sit on the air conditioned bus while we wait for the end of our group to finish. The cold water from the bottom of the cooler get dumped on the last two to finish and we all get on the bus for the journey to our farmstay. When we arrive at the farmstay, we are greeted with cold towels and champagne. I was more excited about the cold towel. We get our room keys, shower (had to shampoo my hair in 7 sections it was so gross), hang our our disgusting wet clothes (that balcony smelled disgusting), stretch, and relax until dinner at 6. We have our last dinner together, get our medals, share our favorite parts of the trip, and play shithead together for the last time. The End of An Epic AdventureI feel so lucky to have been able to go on this trip. Our group was absolutely phenomenal, so many personalities that meshed surprisingly well. There are no words to describe how surreal the whole experience was. I mean I know I just wrote a whole blog about it but you know what I mean. Every turn had something amazing. When we did photo shoots, the scale of the cave came back into perspective . . . this thing was MASSIVE.
When I originally signed up for this tour, I knew Oxalis was the only company that was allowed in and had mixed feelings about that. Since learning more about the company - how much they've improved the lives of everyone in the community and all the good they're doing - I'm a firm believer that they should remain the only company allowed in the cave. They are truly dedicated to preserving the cave and the surrounding jungle areas. I want to say thank you to the whole crew - Howard, Dat, Dang, Quang, Linh, Hien, 5th SA whose name I can't remember (sorry!), all the porters and Chef Cuong for making the whole experience so memorable. Thank you to all the other guests as well for the photographs and videos (many not shared here), especially Justin and his 800+ photos.
1 Comment
Christina McCartha
4/7/2019 07:30:08 pm
Awesome adventure!
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ShannonMath Teacher living and working in Hanoi, Vietnam Archives
February 2022
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