QUANG BINH – Ho Khanh, the finder of Son Doong, every year still searches for unknown caves to repay the forest, because, in the past, they cut timber and took agar.
The peace period after 1975, in Mr. Ho Khanh’s memory were years of extremely precarious life. At that time, the village youths in their eighteen and twenties like Ho Khanh had the power to freely go to the forest, to live and to earn a living through the forest. Some people look for incense even though they do not meet a tree for a month, others exploit wood or collect bombs and shells left over from the war.
He slowly said: “In that day, everyone in the village struggled to take care of their poverty, no one knew the effects they caused the forest. Never thought, one day the land was far away, the whole forest was whole. There are people who come to travel this birth.
After the period 1986-1991, when the Phong Nha Ke Bang Nature Reserve was established and then expanded, people who had taken timber from the forest for many years knew and understood what it means to be “loggers”. They, including Mr. Ho Khanh, returned to look for farming land. Many people went to big cities to make a living.
But suffering has not stopped clinging to the small house on the banks of the Son River. Mr. Khanh borrowed his sister’s land pole to grow rice, grow potatoes and raise more goats. Every year, floods and storms brought him back to Quang Binh, causing him to lose nothing. Debt, he had to sell all the machines, then do it again. In 2001, when the reserve was transformed into a national park, cave expeditions came here more, Khanh ran to open a small coffee shop, named Lake Tren Nui.
Passionate about caves no one has set foot in
During more than 10 years in the forest, Ho Khanh went through dozens of large and small caves of Phong Nha, most of which were later put into exploitation tourism such as En cave, Thien Duong cave … Villagers still know. He is like a good jungler.
In 2007, British royal cave expert Howard Limbert visited Ho Khanh to get more clues about the mysterious cave he has been searching for over the past 10 years. Talking to an expert, Ho Khanh remembered a strange cave opening with a strong wind blowing fog, which he once escaped from a storm during a jungle trip in 1990.
Temporarily leaving the winter house not warm enough, the borrowed field was unfinished and plowed, Mr. Khanh again went to the forest. “Even at that time, the family had to go to the forest, help the expert find caves, to help his homeland,” he said with a smile.
Going through the forest many times because he did not remember the location of the cave, by 2009, Mr. Khanh and his team of experts found Son Doong , discovered and announced this was the largest cave in the world.
In 2011, during the meeting again, Mr. Limbert advised Ho Khanh to be a homestay. At that time, wondering because he did not have capital, Khanh was determined to borrow to build a 3-room communal house on the banks of the Son River. When Son Doong became more and more famous in the world, Mr. Khanh welcomed many groups of guests staying at homestay. Someone also came to meet, chat, shake hands with the person who found the largest cave in the world.
Later, Mr. Khanh borrowed money to expand the scale of the homestay on a land of about 2,000 m2 left by his parents. Still suffering from “stuck” debts at the bank, he still opened the beach for free for guests in the back of the house. Many people came to bathe but did not rent a room, and Khanh and his wife were still happy to welcome them.
In 2013, when the Son Doong adventure tour was put into operation by Oxalis, Mr. Khanh became a porter, bringing foreign delegations, film crews, and foreign news agencies to explore the world’s largest cave in his own homeland. Ho Khanh’s memory of thinking back and forth is the time he went to England to attend the cave workshop that same year. He tipped the airline staff a few pounds, about a hundred thousand Vietnamese Dong. He said that because he served with many Japanese, Hong Kong, British, and French film crews, they had a tip, so they should learn.
For him, the biggest change for him and the villagers after doing tourism is that life is much less difficult. Mr. Khanh has the conditions for his two sons to attend the province’s foreign language school, while the older daughter helps his mother to work as a homestay. When there is no longer worry about poverty, increasing awareness is the second change. Instead of going to the forest instinctively, the villagers now know how to protect the environment, conserve forest resources, because this is a “common valuable asset”.
Currently, Mr. Khanh is the captain of a delegation of 125 porters in the Son Doong tour. Each year, the province asks for permission to go to the forest for 10-12 days, because of the belief that Quang Binh still has many caves that have not been fully exploited. “In the past, I took the agarwood and the woods from the forest. Now, I pay the forest to the caves that need to be known,” he said. Follow vnexpress