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Five miles long, and with its own rivers and jungle: The world's largest cave is open for tours... you just have to trek for a day and a half and then abseil down a Vietnamese cliff to get there
The Son Doong Cave in Vietnam's Quang Binh Province is said to be 5.5 miles long, 650ft wide, and 500ft tall
The cave was created 2 - 5 million years ago by river water eroding limestone underneath a mountain
First discovered in 1991 by a local farmer, who then forgot where it was, and confirmed as largest by cavers in 2009
Tourists with a spare £1,800 ($3,000) can now take tours - but getting to the cave mouth is an adventure in itself
It had lain undetected beneath the Annamite Mountains in a remote part of central Vietnam for millions of years until one day in 1991 when a local farmer stumbled across it and sought shelter there from a storm.
But Ho Khanh's subsequent attempts to get back to the enormous cave he'd found were unsuccessful, so he forgot about it and went on with his job until years later when a group of British cavers asked for his help in finding it.
In 2009 they got lucky, and the Son Doong Cave was - at 5.5 miles long and 650ft wide - officially confirmed as the world's largest cave, five time the size of Malaysia's Deer Cave, which had held the title until then.
Daylight pours in: This astonishing picture gives a sense of the size of the Son Doong Cave in Vietnam, the tourists' rows of tents looking minuscule compared to the vast boulders around them
Ho Khanh, 40, the local farmer who first discovered the cave in 1991 but then couldn't find it again
The entrance: Visitors to the cave have to trek and then abseil down 260ft to get into the Son Doong Cave
Ho Khanh, 40, left, the first man ever to have discovered the cave, shakes a tourist's hand - visitors to the cave have to abseil 260ft through the entrance, right
The cave, which is made up of a network of at least 150 individual caves, has its own lake, river and jungle.
Now the mythical cave has been opened up to the general public by tour company Oxalis, who are running six-day trips for visitors, but it isn't for the faint-hearted, as the journey to the cave takes a day and a half through dense uninhabited jungle, before you abseil 260ft down to its entrance.
And the tour will set you back $3,000 (£1,800).
Once rested, visitors can admire the wonders of Son Doong, including the Hand of Dog, a huge stalagmite that looks like a dog's paw. While sink holes provide rare glimpses of light from the jungle above, and raging rivers flow in complete darkness.
The roof of the cave collapsed centuries ago, creating sections blanketed in lush green.
British tourist Simon Dunne, who was one of six to go on a trial tour earlier this year, said: 'It's very hard to comprehend the scale of the cave.
Hard to find: The approach to the Son Doong Cave in Vietnam involves a treacherous 36-hour journey through dense jungle
'Places that seem a 20 minute walk away take two hours to reach. The darkness really confuses your sense of depth, especially when you're given a rare glimpse of light.'
Simon said: 'The strangest experience of them all was the silence. As they say, silence is deafening and when you're in the lake section of the cave, which is barren to all things living, standing in complete darkness and silence is an experience I'll never forget.'
He added: 'To be on the first-ever tourist expedition into the world's largest cave was one of the biggest reasons for me deciding to go.
'Most of the world has already been extensively charted and mapped, so to get the chance to experience this unique event was something I just couldn't pass up.
'The Indiana Jones theme tune would often be whistled during the trip.'
The name 'Son Doong' cave means 'mountain river cave'.
It was created 2-5 million years ago by river water eroding away the limestone underneath the mountain Where the limestone was weak, the ceiling collapsed creating huge skylights.
Visitors to the 5.5-mile long cave camp on its floor, dwarfed by the cathedral-like space of the cave so enormous it has its own jungle
Source: Daily mail, UK
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