Son Doong cave belongs to Phong Nha – Ke Bang cave complex, located in Son Trach commune, Bo Trach district, Quang Binh province, our country. So far, this is always considered the largest natural cave in the world ever discovered.
Hang Son Doong was discovered in 1991 by a farmer named Ho Khanh. According to Ho Khanh, he was working in the forest at that time to find agarwood.
During one time going to work, he encountered a heavy rain in the forest, fearing flash floods, Ho Khanh decided to find shelter from the rain. Incidentally, he took shelter from the rain… right at Son Doong cave.
At the time of discovering Son Doong cave, Mr. Ho Khanh did not know the value of the cave. Not long after that trip, he quit searching for agarwood and returned to farming.
For the next 15 years, the remains of this cave are still in the dark. It was not until 2006, when an expedition of the British Royal Association came to search for a new cave in Phong Nha – Ke Bang , did Khanh bring his story to them. That is also when the journey to find the old cave begins.
However, the trip to find the old cave was not completely successful. All that is in Khanh’s memory is a large cave, strong winds blowing 24/24 hours.
Even with the help of advanced scientific equipment and Google Earth software , the expedition still could not find Son Doong cave. It was not until 2009 that Ho Khanh officially found the old cave.
According to geologists, Son Doong cave was formed about 2 – 5 million years ago, when river water flowed across the buried limestone area along a fault line. The flow of water eroded the dish and created a giant tunnel like today.
The size of Son Doong cave is very large with a length of at least 5km, equivalent to a capacity of about 68 Boeing 777 aircraft.
Even this number may be larger because according to scientists, the most modern means today have not discovered the true length of this cave.
In Son Doong cave, experts discovered positions of very large size. A photo taken by photographer Carten Peter in May 2010 recorded a cave with a width of 91.44m and an arch of nearly 243.84m – completely “crammed” into a 40-storey building in New York.
National Geographic page even compared that, the cave is so high that it is still comfortable to stack 25 double-decker buses.
The grandeur and grandeur of the landscape of Son Doong cave makes it honored by the world as ” The Great Wall of Vietnam” (understood as the “Great Wall of Vietnam” , just like ” The Great Wall of China”. ” is the Great Wall of China).
Not only famous for its huge size, but Son Doong cave is also known for its diversity in biological landscapes.
In Son Doong cave, explorers discovered a primeval forest with rich vegetation , no trace of humans. Experts have even called the forest in this cave the “garden of paradise” to honor this stunning beauty.
Another special feature of Son Doong cave is the giant cave system of stalactites and “pearls”. Over millions of years under the influence of external forces, Son Doong possesses stalagmite columns up to 70m high.
In addition, people also discovered the world’s largest “pearls ” cave (jewel enclosing a pearl-like seed under the sea, composed mainly of calcite) in the world in Son Doong.
Normally, these “pearls” are only about 1cm in diameter, but in Son Doong, they are as big as a baseball.
With its beauty, Son Doong cave attracts a lot of tourists with 98% being foreigners . Among them, there are families of all three generations who have conquered this cave, or even supermodels such as Jasmina Mala (Czech) and Crown Prince Ahmed Hamdan (from Abu Dhabi) have also explored caves. the world’s largest in Vietnam.