The Son Doong cave in Vietnam is officially the world’s largest cave. And when we say largest cave, we mean it’s freaking huge. The Son Doong cave is five a half miles long, can fit a river and a jungle inside it, and is big enough to house a 40 storey skyscraper. Told you it was huge.
The funny thing about the cave is that nobody even knew it existed until 2009. The entrance was discovered by a local man in 1991, but there was way too steep a drop for him to go in and explore it so the full extent of what was going on in there was only discovered in 2009 when a British caving expedition headed down there. In fact, when it opens as a tourist attraction in a month or so, visitors will have to rappel 80 metres down a cliff face just to get inside it. No kidding that dude in ’91 was too scared to get in there.
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There’s loads of rare stuff and features in the cave and it looks as though it’s pretty much developed its own ecosystem over the years. The roof of the cave collapsed years and years ago which allowed a jungle to grow and flying foxes and monkeys to breed in there. Apparently they’re kinda weird looking though because they grew up in a cave, I couldn’t find any pictures of them yet though. There’s also a bunch of algae, rare pearls, waterfalls, new plant species and loads of other stuff in there. In short it sounds completely amazing and pretty much like travelling to another world that hasn’t been touched by technology or anything to do with modern society.
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Of course, despite this you’re still going to have to pay through the nose to take the tour, especially by Vietnam prices. It’s going to cost $3000 and will take 6 days, which to be honest probably sounds like a bargain considering how awesome it looks in the pictures below. It’s still pretty expensive for that part of the world though, you have to admit. There’s also a bunch of videos you can watch which gives you a guided tour and just makes me want to check it out in the flesh even more. It really is spectacular.
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Check out these awesome photos from the Son Doong cave: