• Nature: the largest cave in the world continues to grow

  • Adventure Descent to the most amazing caves on the planet

The

Son Doong

underground labyrinth

, excavated and eroded over millions of years, reaches 200 meters high in some areas.

Or what is the same: it could contain a block

of 40-story skyscrapers

.

The interior of this immense Vietnamese cave houses a tunnel of more than five kilometers, a 90-meter high calcite barrier - the

Great Wall of Vietnam

- and gigantic stalagmites and stalactites.

A local collector, Ho Khanh, discovered it by chance in 1991 when he found the entrance to the cave and heard the sound of a river inside.

It was hidden in the

Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park

, a Unesco Heritage site.

He tried to return to it but could not find the opening, hidden in the middle of a lush jungle, and the place fell into oblivion for almost 20 years.

In 2009, Khanh and a team of British investigators located the entrance, and four years later, part of it was opened to tourists.

LIMITED NUMBER OF VISITORS

Since then, only one travel agency,

Oxalis

, has been allowed to show it, to limit the number of visitors.

The aim is to avoid the mistakes made in other emblematic places of the country, such as

Ha Long Bay

or the

beaches of Nha Trang,

threatened by mass tourism.

Only a few hundred visitors enter Son Doong each year.

It costs about

50 euros per visit

and 2,500 euros for four days of exploration.

The money raised primarily benefits the local population, a boon in this poor region in the center of the country.

Entrance to the cave, in the Phong Nha-Ke Bang NP.

Before, young people went to the national park to illegally cut

agarwood,

which is used to make incense.

Others hunted civets and porcupines, endangered species.

"We were always under

threat from rangers

(and) we were doing nothing good for nature," says Ho Minh Phuc, a former lumberjack who has become a porter for groups authorized to explore the cave.

Between guides, porters and owners of small tourist lodgings, some 500 locals live thanks to Son Doong and the other gigantic cavities of the national park.

THE IMPACT OF A NEW CABLE CAR

But the ecosystem is still under threat, as UNESCO points out in a 2019 report. A

cable car project

to Son Doong

was abandoned

, but another is on the table to reach a cave located 3.5 kilometers away.

This will cause "a radical change in the nature of the proposed tourist offers (...) and there will undoubtedly be an

irreversible impact

on the environment, largely unspoilt," warned Unesco.

Experts are also concerned.

The pandemic hits tourism in Vietnam squarely: the number of foreign visitors fell by almost 80% in 2020 compared to 2019, when the country welcomed 18 million foreign visitors, a record.

The economic situation is such that, once the health crisis ends, Vietnam could give in to developers and develop infrastructure around the park's cavities, experts warn.

The authorities have put in place "

very good

protection policies

, but they often ignore them," says Peter Burns, a consultant who worked on a sustainable tourism project in Vietnam.

For the porter Phuc it is essential not to succumb to

mass tourism

after the pandemic in Son Doong.

"It would be terrible, this natural wonder would be reduced to a minimum in a few years and our livelihood would disappear," he warns.

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