The tour
There is only one way to visit Hang Sơn Đoòng cave—and it’s through the tour operator with the only license and safety approval, Oxalis Adventure. The company works with the British Cave Research Association and the Vietnamese government to carry out its expeditions. The tour runs once a week, between January to August (due to flooding), and the four-day tour (three nights camping) is not for the faint-hearted.
It has a maximum of ten participants per session. The group includes caving experts, local guides, chefs, park rangers, and porters to help with luggage and tents. Access is controlled to 1,000 visitors per year, so there is quite a long waiting list (as you can probably imagine). A feasible and immediate option would be to check out National Geographic x Facebook’s virtual 360-tour.
Although there isn’t much found evidence of people living in the caves at any point, the cave is, however, rich in other forms of life. This includes monkeys climbing the treetops, snakes roaming the grounds, and even fluffy creatures from flying foxes to squirrels. Limbert, one of the discoverers, stated that he has come across seven new species of fish, spider, scorpion, woodlice, plankton, and shrimp—all without eyes, an evolutionary result of living in darkness. Although it is mostly darkness in the cave, there are occasional beams of sunlight.