Caves at Hon Chong, south Vietnam

In July 2011 I went on a caving trip in south Vietnam. The objective was to survey caves, a continuation of the work started by the group in 2010.

The first week we spent at Hon Chong in Kien Giang province. Hon Chong is on the Gulf of Thailand and just south of the town of Ha Tien. Ha Tien is just 8 km from the Cambodian border. Few foreign tourists come to this area, probably because there is no crossing point to Cambodia. We didn't see a single white tourist whilst we were there.

Hon Chong has been described as the Ha Long of the south, but this is rather an exaggeration. It IS scenic, but there are only a handful of karst islands.

There are however many limestone hills in the area, and it was those we went to explore. The first area we went to was south of Hon Chong, at the southern end of the beach. Chua Hang is a famous temple and popular with Buddhist visitors.

As with other caves in SE Asia, Buddha now has flashing LED halos.

The cave is just a short tunnel through the corner of the hill and comes out by the beach

Just beyond is the jetty and boats go for a short tour around the islands,

This block has fallen over

We stopped at Hang Gieng Tien - the word Tien has fallen off the wall!

There is a boardwalk to the cave, but we had to paddle through the sea for the last few metres. The cave is very short but has some nice formations. There is even a rubbish bin and the cave seems to be cleaned

We surveyed the cave

then the boat went around the nearby islands before returning to the jetty. We then went to Kim Cuong or Diamond Cave

The cave gets its name from the calcite crystals. There are some nice roots on the nearby cliff

See Part 2 on Moi Chau Cave.

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Expedition results are published in Karst and Caves of South Vietnam, Part 1: Provinces of Kien Giang, An Giang and Da Nang. Michael Laumanns (editor). Published by Berliner Höhlenkundliche Berichte (BHB), Volume 43 , 2011 . To order, contact me or see BHB 2011.

© Liz Price
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