Appointment at 7am to catch up with the group before the bus started moving. At 4am in the rainy weather of Quang Binh, I rode my motorbike 70km from home to Phong Nha to meet Mr. Ho Khanh, all the while excited about the stories and conversations that were to come. Arriving at 7am, everyone was preparing for the journey to Son Doong Cave. The porters together checked the necessary equipment for the trip and chatted. Mr. Ho Khanh, assigned who would be the group leader today, divided each task and checked the final equipment before starting the journey.
Ho Khanh - the discoverer of the world's largest cave
After coordinating the porter team and the car to take the group to the point to prepare to explore Son Doong, Mr. Ho Khanh returned to his homestay and talked, recounting his life and career. Ho Khanh is the person who discovered the world's largest cave - Son Doong. His father died when he was just starting school, his family was poor so when he was in 7th grade, he had to drop out of school to become the youngest lacquer worker to find agarwood in the Phong Nha Ke Bang mountain range.
Sharing with Travellive, Mr. Ho Khanh confided: "In the past, I often wandered in the forest, some months I was in the forest more than at home. Later, I went less, only then could I come home to have dinner with my wife. Now, I stay at home, after work I arrange the porter team, in the afternoon I come home to feed the chickens. One of my sons has gone abroad, the other stays at home to help me manage the homestay. Since I started managing the porter team, I have had more time for my family."
In nearly 10 years, he had the opportunity to discover 21 caves in Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park, including Son Doong Cave, En Cave, Bat Cave, Thien Duong Cave... Photo: Provided by the character
In nearly 10 years, he had the chance to discover 21 caves in the Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park area, including Son Doong Cave, En Cave, Bat Cave, Paradise Cave... Of all the caves he found, the cave with a cool lake inside he named Lake on the Mountain, the cave with a lot of wind was named Phong, Thanh Nghia Cave was named after his wife, Thai Hoa Cave was named after his son, a cave named Khanh - his name, Hung Cave was the name of a close friend of his in the commune who had gone into the forest with him several times. Thai Hoa Cave was discovered by chance when he got lost and had to wander around in the forest. He used his son's name to name the cave as a souvenir to remember that time lost in the forest...
In 1994, Ho Khanh got married. From then on, he quit his job of collecting agarwood to invest in machinery to focus on farming. However, the people in the area were poor at that time and did not hire them, so Khanh's family went bankrupt and had to sell all the machinery. He smiled and continued, after that, his family continued to invest in the economy by establishing a farm in the administrative area of Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park Management Board now, but later there was a decision to suspend it for clearance.
Ho Khanh reviews the porter's troop schedule
Returning to the story of his discovery of Son Doong Cave, when returning to England, Mr. Howard Limbert told Ho Khanh to try to find the cave where he had sheltered from the rain and the wind blowing through his back, which scared him nearly 10 years ago. During his long journeys through the forest, the cave was like a roof and a place to nourish him by providing him with a source of clean water. That was also the reason why he knew so many caves. In mid-2008, he walked alone in the forest for 2 consecutive days, luckily he found the cave again and he marked it carefully and contacted the University of Natural Sciences - Vietnam National University, Hanoi to inform Mr. Howard Limbert. In early 2009, when the British Royal Cave Association expedition returned to Vietnam, he led the group with Mr. Howard Limbert to survey and this cave was named Son Doong.
Son River where Ho Khanh lived
Since 2010, Ho Khanh has been assigned the important responsibility of supervising logistics, recruiting porters to carry expedition equipment and serving meals every time the expedition goes into the forest. Ho Khanh is currently managing 5 porter teams, each team has 25 members. His daily job is to ensure all porter teams work professionally and complete their jobs well. Since participating in tourism activities, Ho Khanh and many other porters have had a stable source of income, they saw the potential for tourism development so they invested in their children's education. Many people who finished university returned home with their families to open homestays to welcome guests, many became adventure tour guides for Oxalis Adventure and some other travel companies in the area.
From a mountain boy to the leader of the porter army
In 2013, when the Son Doong adventure tour was launched, Ho Khanh became a porter, taking groups of tourists, film crews, and foreign news agencies to explore the world's largest cave. Every year, he spends 1-2 times with the British Royal Cave Association's expedition team to explore and search for new caves.
Coordinate the team of porters to explore the world's largest cave, Son Doong
After many years as the Son Doong porter team leader, Ho Khanh has accumulated some capital and knowledge during his working time. Currently, he only occasionally goes to the forest, only when a tourist group has a request to go to the forest. Otherwise, he will stay at home to manage and dispatch troops for each tour. He and his wife have built a small homestay on the banks of the Son River in Phong Nha town, Quang Binh, where his family lives. The homestay has 8 comfortable bedrooms and is run by his wife - with hard work and the support of friends and colleagues, Ho Khanh's homestay has now become a very attractive destination for both domestic and international tourists. Ho Khanh's homestay has created jobs for his wife and children and some neighboring people.
He said that in 2020, when Covid started, like other accommodation businesses in the area, his family had 2 difficult years. With the climate of the flood center of the Central region every year, every time the storms and floods came, the furniture in the homestay was damaged, so he had to renovate and repaint his homestay continuously. “Before the pandemic, most of the rooms were full, now it's only occasionally. But after a few floods, we had to renovate again, there was nothing left! Never mind! But it's fun..." - Mr. Khanh shared.
Looking back on his journey from a poor school dropout, a wandering lacquer worker, to a “leader” porter, Ho Khanh has contributed to changing an entire community. Thanks to him and the porters of that time, Phong Nha was not only preserved but also developed sustainably. The forest workers of the past no longer hunted or illegally logged wood but became pioneers in protecting forests and nature.
And it all started with a man who stopped to take shelter from the rain in the forest more than 30 years ago.
