Vietnamcaves.com

To be told that there were two caves just past the National Park check point after all these years was just amazing. But perhaps with one being of military use, we could see the reason why. Less than 800m past the checkpoint, Howard Deb Russ and myself were guided into the usual dense jungle for about 500m, and then onto a reasonable track.

 

We soon met a decent stream, which we crossed, and continued into the jungle until we hit the hill, and a crag. Turning left, we soon arrived at our first cave. Hang Dan or Bullet Cave was a square hole cut into the crag with a small wall on the right to reduce the entrance size. It was basically and Anti-Aircraft gun placement used during the war with the Americans.

 

A quick measure up (36m long) and a drink, and we set off in search of our second cave. This proved a lot harder to get to. It involved a lot of climbing up pinnacle karst, and very loose boulders. Eventually we reached a col, and descended into a small long valley, where we found the cave. On reaching the entrance, it didn't look really good, we were quite high up and it looked very dry, but it had a reasonable draught.

 

We set off in to survey, but after a short distance came across a junction. Going left and following the draught, we started to descend in quite a nice passage, although a bit small. Passing a second passage on the right, we arrived at a small chamber with a large crack in the floor (choked).

 

Keeping right we traversed through several breakdown chambers all getting smaller until we arrived at a large boulder choke, which was very loose and also very rotten and crumbly. We called it a draw after about 30m in the choke, with no draught and no obvious way on.

The two right hand passages formed a loop in well decorated passage, with no other ways off.
We took photos on the way out, and had an entertaining climb back down to the vehicle.

 

Ian Watson