The minibus bounced wildly along the thin strip of rough bitumen shown on the map as the main highway, just outside of Hanoi (pron. Ha Noi). The horn blasted yet again. Chooks, bicycles, dogs, pigs and people not on bicycles scattered in all directions.
Carol delicately removes a size 8 hiking boot.
"C'est quoi ça?"
"Merde"
"Merde??"
"Oui, merde"
"MERDE!!, MERDE!!, MERDE!!" etc (plus look of absolute
horror on Bac's face)
Excuse the French (merde = shit) but our Government-supplied translator speaks Vietnamese, Russian and French, but stuff all English.
It is next to impossible to get a Vietnamese driver to make a piss-stop, but find a speck (well okay, a glob then) of shit on the bottom of a boot and the minibus stops like it has just hit the back of a parked semi. (Must remember that trick). Several busting people quickly exit into the rice paddy.
What a great idea, caving with a bit of shopping in a country with such a different culture such as Vietnam. Alas, it ended up being a lot of shopping and a little bit of caving. Vietnam is a communist country where there are a lot of officials. These officials need to have something to do so it is the practice in Vietnam for permission to be sought to do just about anything non-standard. And nobody wants to take responsibility. Non-standard things include subversive activities such as driving a country registered vehicle into the city, or taking photographs in provinces which adjoin the border. The only activity that we didn't need permission for was shopping so we ended up with quite a bit of that; quaint markets, that sort of thing.
On this expedition the group consisted of 12 people - eight Australians, two New Zealanders and two Germans. (The two Germans fled the country very early on.) Our mission was to scoop booty in northern Vietnam. Unfortunately since our chosen karst was within military border zones with China, there were many, many, many complications. The problem was that they do things very differently in Vietnam to anywhere else and to achieve goals you need a lot of time and patience. Tantrums would not have helped the situation - though they were considered and discussed in a group situation.
In the beginning, we felt fortunate as the organisers of the expedition, Heather Jeffries and Wayne Tyson had received assistance from Dr Pham Khang and Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quang My in the facilitation of the expedition. Once in Vietnam, we were helped by Mr Nguyen Xuan Truong (pron. Trung) and Dr Dao Dinh Bac (pron. Buck), our hosts and translators, all from the Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Department of Geography. It was their task to cut through the maze of red tape so that we could pursue our goals. These were to explore the northern karst regions of Ha Giang Province (pron. Harzan) on the Chinese border, specifically the region around Dong Van District, including Pho Bang, and also to explore a resurgence and inflow feature outside of the town of Ha Giang, which was noted but not explored, on the 1995 expedition.
Months before the trip, Heather asked them to obtain all the required permission from the Hanoi officials and the local officials for the towns, villages and regions that we wished to travel through and prospect for new caves. Heather went to a lot of effort to send all the necessary information regarding what was needed to obtain the permission. Alas, all the planning in the world can come to nought when pitted against the collective bureaucratic will of the nation Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Minh) created. We never seemed to have the right type or number of permission bits of paper. Plus, our so called translators could not speak English particularly well; though one could speak French. Al Warild's rough French became useful. Ironically the translators were being paid US$35 a day because foreigners have to have hosts to liaise with officials.
The number of permission papers needed was incredible. Permission was needed to leave Hanoi. Once in another region, permission was needed to not just visit for the day but to stay for a length of time, then permission to take photographs, permission to study caves, permission to survey, permission to stay overnight in a cave ... it seemed permission was needed to fart after a while. On two occasions when we had a going cave, the permission that was suitable on the first day was no longer sufficient on the next day and we would be fretting over how to retrieve gear.
The problem was that the military border police would make up their own mind regardless of the official pieces of paper that Trungy and Bac would present, representing a day or two of negotiations with the President of Ha Giang province. The negotiating was often an arduous task for our translators as it often involved set protocol and the drinking of copious amounts of Russian Vodka or rice wine (rocket fuel), rough as guts and paying the usual bribe. Trungy wasn't into drinking that sort of alcohol so he found it very hard work.
It seemed quite strange that there would be so many problems with getting access since Vietnam badly wants foreigners to assist projects. A couple of times we would come across aid workers who would be frustrated at the lack of permission for their organisations to be altruistic - but that is how this part of the country works at present. From us, the university wants the expertise of cavers to further their karst research by exploring, surveying and publishing maps of caves. And the local people want the information to explore the possibility to turn caves into tourist caves or use them as a water resource for villages - if the officials allow it. That was the problem - people in uniform and pen pushers. Otherwise, the Vietnamese people were so friendly and helpful.
So, the trip overall may not have been successful in terms of caving but as a fun cultural experience it was beaut. All of us were constantly fascinated by the scenery, the lack of hygiene, the people (especially the hill tribes that speak their own dialects and have their own distinctive style of dress), the gross toilets along the way, and the suspect food and water. We drank lots of carefully bottled water with hops and alcohol added. Tiger beer and local 'rocket fuel' was the order of the day. We managed to get hold of a cheap guitar which several people were able to play. Some of us tried hard to sing in key and some simply didn't bother. The camaraderie was brilliant.
The group met up late on the 28th December at Hong Kong Airport all wearing our regulation expedition t-shirts so that we stood out amongst the crowd. Together we flew to Hanoi. We rose in the morning to experience culture shock as we stepped out the front door of our hotel to take in the myriad sights, sounds and smells of the old quarter in Hanoi. The narrow street which smelt a bit like a sewer was crowded with bicycles, motorbikes and cyclos (3 wheeled public transport) and people. Every vehicle was tooting but never in unison, and there were no obvious road rules.
We were all charged with various items to be bought for the expedition. Although no one could speak Vietnamese, we could all mime. Each street seemed to have the same items for sale so that there was a packet of biscuits street, milk powder street, tools street and a polystyrene street. Miming was quite effective in communicating our needs, however it got tricky when searching streets for items such as toilet paper. The shopping was challenging.
Several days later we took off to Ha Giang, eight bumpy hours drive to the north, though only about 300 km. We started off with three jeeps for the 12 cavers, three academics and the three drivers plus our gear including a drum of carbide. On reaching the transport depot the other side of town, the drivers began an agitated discussion with our translators, something about the jeeps being overloaded. So we got rid of one of the jeeps and hired a mini bus. Apparently this was what Wayne had asked for in the first place but it somehow got lost in the translation. These common misunderstandings caused Wayne to lose all his hair in frustration; Heather's just went white.
The town of Ha Giang is the centre of the Ha Giang province. After some negotiating with the officials by our translators, the group was invited to meet the provincial president and his chums. First, we had to be checked out by the guards at the compound gate though thankfully not strip searched. It was made clear to us that we were not allowed to take photographs. Then we were directed into their version of a town hall. It was fascinating to be ushered into the meeting room which had two long tables facing each other with symbols of communism on the walls. After a bit of a wait the officials came and sat down and we all smiled at each other and made 'hello' movements. Then one of the officials would speak, Trungy would translate, then Wayne would speak, Trungy again and so on. We all got introduced as experts on something which received respectful nods from the officials. It was weird. The upshot of it all was that we had permission to cave in the Ha Giang province but that we had to present a report at the end of the trip. No problem, we thought.
Our aim was to first explore the resurgence and inflow feature known locally as Hang Dai Ta (Colonel Cave), 4km from the Chinese border. To get to the inflow, we had to drive for one hour along a precipitous dirt road in the jungle and then walk in along a track. We all got very excited when the inflow was found to be a very large, impressive entrance, 100m x 100m, at the base of a sheer 300m high cliff. The streambed was dry to begin with but after a downhill climb over boulders for 200m, the active streamway continued on into the cave. The approximate distance between resurgence and inflow was 5km so we organised ourselves into groups to take turns at exploring and surveying till it croaked!
Unfortunately for us there was a military post (couple of shacks in the jungle) close to where the track started. After finding the permission adequate on the first day of visiting the cave it was bewildering to find on the second day that the bits of permission was inadequate because of the sudden increase in importance of the threat of landmines surrounding the track to the cave. So back to Ha Giang to get the permission fixed up and back we go to the military post the next day. On the way, one of the jeep's tyres was punctured on a home made spike. This time the name of the cave on the bits of permission was considered incorrect. We worked out that no matter how much permission we got from the provincial president, the commander at this outpost was not going to let us in. This was his territory (Apocalypse Now?). While all this was going on, it was interesting to look at the pile of armaments rusting away outside the military post - the blokes were able to identify grenades, rocket launchers, landmines and other nasty devices.
So in the end there was only one survey trip into the cave. One group surveyed till they had run out of carbide and energy after an all night effort. However, since access was denied, the next group was stopped going in so the worry was we wouldn't be able to retrieve the equipment left in the bivvy site (survey gear, a Therm-a-rest and other bits). It looked for a couple of days like we wouldn't be able to get our gear back until the commander relented and two people were escorted under military guard to the bivvy site.
So, the hard decision was made to quit a going cave but this was particularly disappointing as the people lucky enough to see some of the cave talked excitedly about the river passage (40m x 20m) in terms of rimstone pools, waterfalls and long swims, lots of active flowstone and so on. The grinding of molars could be heard in the background by the people who hadn't been in the cave, especially Heather and Wayne who had been waiting two years to explore it. Total surveyed length of an upstream passage and the ongoing downstream passage: 1600m.
The next plan was to spend at least two weeks exploring the karst regions of Dong Van District, a day's drive north of Ha Giang but still in the same province. Despite the appropriate permission from the President of Ha Giang Province, the expedition permission for the district was limited by the authorities of Dong Van District to only 5 days exploration; furthermore, we were only allowed to explore around the Dong Van township (rather than Dong Van district). Then, we were only allowed to explore caves directly on either side of the road. People were getting a tad sarcastic by this stage.
Despite these restrictions we got to check out many cave entrances in spectacular tower karst. With dull repetition most of the caves choked after the entrance chambers but we were compensated by the scenery as well as seeing the comings and goings of the hill tribe peoples. They found us intriguing and often children and adults would gather around us to see what we were doing.
Near one village, Ti Phin, we all felt a bit blah in the stomach. We looked at each other to see who was going to volunteer to croak the next hole (Ti Phin Cave No. 1). Hugh decided to be brave or strange , you choose. It is only a cave, you say, and probably doesn't even go. Yes, but apparently this one had a dead body at the bottom of it. We didn't know what state the bloke was in. Hugh slowly abseiled the 10m in with a sack given to him by the head of the village. I didn't see the remains as I was busy in another hole but apparently Hugh had to pick bits spread all over a ramp as rock fall over the previous five years had distributed the body all over it. Did the cave go? Nope.
I must say I was impressed with Hugh when prospecting another hole (Lung Hoa Cave) but named by us as Huke's Hole. It was found to have an 8m diameter entrance pipe with a vertical pitch of 20m. But we didn't know that then and all we had was a 15m length of rigging tape. Just one of those times on a trip when you split into two groups and the other group ends up with all the rope. Hugh volunteered to abseil and prusik on this rigging tape. I decided I wasn't that desperate. Actually, it worked fine.
The cave ended up being quite a nice one. After the entrance pitch it continued down at an average incline of 38o in a series of climbs and small pitches in a rift. We thought we might have a decent cave finally so two groups were organised. One to push the cave and one to survey from the entrance down. When the cave croaked the push team would survey back. Hugh, Heather and Brian made up the survey team and Al, Jon and I were in the push team. It ended up being quite comical as the push team abseiled one small pitch past the last known point - and the cave became impassable.
But, could it be made passable? Through a small hole in the rift, the passage continued down. A light breeze could be detected on our disappointed faces. "Let's make the hole bigger" said I. Al looked a bit dubious but the way I saw it, what else were we going to do - survey back to the survey team? How dull. So the three of us took turns with the bolt hammer to chip away at the limestone. Don't know how long we spent hammering but when the survey team caught up with us I was ready to have a go. Off with the overalls of course. Wouldn't want to get snagged or get a hole in the oversuit trying to ooze my way back against gravity. Thank goodness Heather didn't have film in her camera. A bit of a scrape and off I went into completely uncharted cave territory to find, about 30m down, the cave croaked anyway. The most amusing part of it was that after I squeezed through the gap, Jon had a go at getting through. On my way back I could see two legs flapping in the breeze above me. I only learnt later that Jon was naked but I missed it all because my mag light wasn't bright enough.
There were other caves that we surveyed but the most memorable has to be Ban Vang Cave (Grogan Gulch) near the township of Yen Minh. My favourite name for it is Turd Pot, so called because the entrance was full of turds. It's a rural area and the entrance was right beside the road but hidden by some large boulders. It was getting close to the end of our time in Vietnam and people were thinking of cleaning their gear so as not to get hassled by Customs - and it was a nice sunny day. However this extremely unhygienic cave needed to be explored and mapped.
Fortunately Ric was a particularly good friend that day and spent 15 minutes shovelling turds away from the entrance pitch which ended up measuring 25m. I was helping Al with the surveying but I cannot admit to a lot of enthusiasm. I made sure I stepped carefully with the thread while recording data and holding my nose. The pitch lead to a low mud-floored chamber which I had to sketch. My drawing was rough and fast as I didn't want to think too heavily about what was in that boggy mud or have any flesh come in contact with it. I did not relax until the way on was by a dry vadose overflow passage that headed upstream.
My enthusiasm recovered as the way on lead to a large chamber containing magnificent mud-covered rimstone pools. Above a certain level, the pools were pristine. A 3m climb further on lead to a series of chambers beautifully decorated with many formations and crystal pools. Probably the best potential tourist cave, if the local economy could afford the logistics of developing it - and if they can stop the locals using the entrance as a toilet.
I would like to thank Heather and Wayne for doing the hard work in organising this priceless expedition and Al for translating the translators.