Tourists Can Now Explore World’s Largest,Vietnam’s Son Doong Cave

For the first time in history Vietnam’s Son Doong cave, which is over 5.5 miles long and could fit a 40-story skyscraper inside its walls,will be open to the public. A tour company called Oxalis is running trial tours of the cave and accepting sign-ups for real six-day tours to take place next year.

Son Doong cave (hang Sơn Đoòng, “Mountain River cave” in Vietnamese)is a cave in Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park, Vietnam. Currently the biggest known cave in the world, the cave is located near the Laos-Vietnam border. It has a large fast-flowing underground river inside.

In 2009, two British cavers dropped into Son Doong and discovered the largest cave on Earth. It contains giant stalactites, waterfalls and a jungle that is known as the Garden of Edam with native animals like flying foxes, monkeys and hornbills thriving inside the cavern’s lush landscape. The cave contains two underground sinkholes with cliffs as high as 800 feet and a “Great Wall of Vietnam” that is over 15 stories high. Fields of algae from ancient pools blanket sections of the cave’s interior and rare pearls of calcite crystals coat the cave walls.

The Son Doong cave beats out the previous world-record holder, Deer Cave in the Malaysian section of the island of Borneo.