daveclucas

New Year's Day 2010: I had arrived in Saigon the previous evening and stayed overnight in a nice hotel a half hour taxi journey from the airport. Today was the start of my caving adventure in Southern Vietnam.

This was my second visit to Vietnam but this time I would be caving. The trip had been arranged by my German friend Michael Laumanns as a pre-expedition venture before joining the Northern Lao - European Caves 2010 expedition to the Oudomxai province. He had been in contact with the provincial authorities and had obtained permission to explore and map a small group of caves near to Ha Tien on the Mekong Delta. He had previously explored caves just over the border in Cambodia and expected similar caves here. We were to be a three man team who would spend the next ten days in the area before travelling to Hanoi for a meeting with the Geology Department and then on to Laos.

I met Michael and Helmut Steiner, who had both travelled overnight from Germany, at the airport and we took a taxi to the bus station. The bus from Saigon took around seven hours, arriving after dark at a remote spot, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The bus driver insisted this was the end of the journey and we were in Ha Tien. We were left standing at the side of the road with all our luggage. It turned out we were now on the edge of town but we managed to get transport into Ha Tien on the back of three motorcycles. Being out first day we were no doubt mercilessly overcharged but forntunately by western standards it was still very cheap. The hotel Michael had in mind was full so we took rooms in another hotel across the road.

The next morning, after breakfast we went for a tour of the area. First we visited Thach Dong cave, also known as Thach Dong Thon Van. This is a show cave with a Buddhist monastery inside. There are the usual legends, in this case, concerning the rescue of a princess.

We then moved on to Da Dung which was to be the main focus of our trip.