Vietnam Tour. Part -II

The Sung Sot Caves:

Discovered by the French in 1901, which they named it in amazement as “Grotte des Surprises” or (Surprise Grotto). Sung Sot Cave is one of the biggest, most beautiful caves in Halong Bay and a highlight on most Halong Bay itineraries.

These are natural formation due to the effect of the sea eroding the lime stone and invading deep inside to hollow out the island into large cavernous caves.
Situated at an elevation of 25 meters above sea level on the Bo Han Island their area is a stupendous 10,000 square metres.

Sung Sot Cave is divided into two chambers; the first chamber, known as the “Waiting Room” is vast, adorned by stalagmites and stalactites. It is lit with artificial multicoloured lightening to accentuate the chamber’s structural beauty. As one walk along sweating profusely in the sultry humid atmosphere, one is overtaken with awe, despite getting a fair idea about the size of the caves from the tour guide or Internet.

Standing there in a semidarkness, with bright lit areas alternating with shadowed areas, trying to find out some sense or pattern in the walls or ceilings, one realises it’s natures work and natures art, where no two brush strokes are replicated and no two shades are replicated.

Walking along the demarcated and lighted one passes through a narrow corridor to enter the second chamber.

This chamber is called as the “Serene Castle” and one realises why, on reaching there. This is an extremely large chamber with a very high ceiling with rock formations, literally littered around. Here the wall rises sharply into the scalloped ceiling, the effect of the hammering sea waves, giving the ceiling an appearance of a wave filled sea.

Stalactites hanging from the ceiling and stalagmites rising from the floor, vastness of the caves and the lighting, create an outwardly magnificent view. Soaking in that beauty with all the senses itself was surreal.

In that place, we humans with all our intelligence, all our knowledge, cloaked in fashionable attire and radiating our attitudes, looked puny. We are truly insignificant and immaterial, in nature’s grand scheme of things.

Tried to capture the essence of the caves in pictures and videos but they (pictures) do not do any justice to the visual treat. Not even 1%.