Meaning "Mountain River Cave" in Vietnamese, Hang Sơn Đoòng cave is located along Vietnam's western border with Laos.
Son Doong Cave - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The cave was discovered in 1991 by a local man, Ho Khanh, but was only recently made known to Westerners in 2009 when a British caving expedition, led by Howard Limbert, ventured into the cave.
And as shown in these amazing images taken by photographer Carsten Peter, there is even a jungle concealed deep inside the cave.
Because of a collapsed portion of the cave roof, vegetation began to grow and form what would be the largest cave jungle.
The jungle is fairly small, but considering its location also fairly incredible. It also has the nickname "Garden of Eden."
Wonderful waterfalls: A waterfall explodes into Hang Son Doong in the hidden depths of the Vietnamese jungle, which is part of a network of over 150 caves. Image credit: Peter Carsten
Carsten from Munich, Germany, took the images in 2010 when he joined British and German cavers during further expeditions of the site. The purpose of the expedition was to make a complete exploration of Hang Son Doong and create a photographic record of the cave.
Cartsen, 52 said he spent up to two weeks at a time deep inside the caves, where he slept with just a sleeping bag and spent his time exploring and photographing the secret underground world.
"We discovered new parts of the cave, it's a huge area so to find them and access them is very difficult.
Just goes to show you how much of our little world is still unexplored, how much more there is to still discover...