I meet a Vietnamese legend, and ask him a silly question

This morning I travelled from Hue to Phong Nha Ke Bang, the national park. Phong Nha is the part of the trip I have been most looking forward to. Another UNESCO World Heritage site, its limestone karsts were formed 400 million years ago. Most of the park is tropical jungle, sheltering a diversity of animals and plants (and unfortunately many miles of unexploded ordnance from the war). Here lies the largest cave in the world, Hang Son Doong (Mountain River Cave), so enormous that one of its caverns could accommodate a battleship, or a 40-storey skyscraper. It was discovered in 1991 by Ho Khanh, a local who had been living in the jungle at that time. He now lives here in the village, and I set off to try to find him.

Hot chocolate, condensed milk, and coffee, in equal thirds. View into Phong Nha Ke Bang.

I rented a bike with friendlier brakes than the one in Hoi An, and cycled slowly along the Son River to Ho Khanh's homestay at the edge of the village. I drank a hot chocolate overlooking the river, and then went in search of the facilities. I approached a man who was wandering gently around the vegetable patch, and asked him in Vietnamese where the toilets were. He gestured and I made my way to them. Partway through my business I realised, remembering a photo I had seen previously, that I had just met Ho Khanh himself, and that my first question to him, after having asked how he was, had not been a particularly eloquent one. Feeling a little like Bridget Jones in that brilliantly awkward scene when she asks Salman Rushdie where the loos are, I quickly finished and approached him once again in an attempt to start over. I said, "You are Ho Khanh. You find Son Doong." (I hadn't managed to learn the past tense by the time I left). He was he, Ho Khanh agreed, and he had indeed. I told him about the three-day tour I had booked and which caves I would be visiting, and together we watched a small child playing with my bicycle. I thanked him for the chocolate and the view, and made what I hoped was a more dignified departure than my arrival had been. 

Ho Khanh and me

A photo in Ho Khanh's house of himself with Howard Limbert, who, with Deb Limbert, led the first expedition into Hang Son Doong. 


Comments

Post a Comment