Incredible story of the boy who lived in the jungle for 41 YEARS after his dad fled the Vietnam war
Ho Van Lang built tree houses, dressed in clothes made from tree bark and ate rats to survive
FORGET Alexander Skarsgård – the Swedish heartthrob who's been busy flexing his jaw-dropping six-pack in the new Tarzan movie – and prepare to meet the real life jungle kings.
Ho Van Lang, 44, and his dad Ho Van Thanh, 85, spent 41 years living in deep forest in the Tay Tra district of Quang Ngai province after fleeing the Vietnam war.
In a tale that sounds straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster, the wild pair built tree houses, dressed in loincloths fashioned out of tree bark and hunted rats for their dinner.
They had no contact with any other human beings or the modern world for four decades.
Thanh, an army veteran, decided to flee his small village in 1972 with his then two-year-old son Lang after a US bomb killed his wife and two other children.
They were discovered by locals in 2013 and have slowly been adapting to civilisation - they now live in a house near the jungle.
Last November, Alvaro Cerezo, managing director of Docastaway – which offers holidays to remote, uninhabited parts of the world – met with Lang.
He had wanted to ask him about survival techniques, but they ended up spending five days together living in the jungle where he had grown up.
In a blog post Alvaro wrote that Lang was “enthusiastic about the idea of going back”.
He wrote: “At the beginning my intention was to learn new survival techniques from him, but without realising, I unveiled one of the most endearing people I have ever met.
“For this and other reasons the 'survival' took a back seat and I decided to relax and enjoy being with him in his environment."
Alvaro described Lang as being “childlike”.
He said he speaks little of the native language, has no concept of time other than day and night, nor sources of energy other than fire and the sun.
“This 'Mowgli' was completely ignorant of how the outside, civilised world was with the exception of the stories his father told him about the aeroplanes that crossed the sky,” Alvaro said.
Thanh had limited how much information he gave his son about the outside world and didn't even tell him women existed.
Over the four decades Lang and Thanh lived in five different places in the same mountain range.
They built wooden houses high above the ground and drank water out of the rivers and streams.
Their diet was varied.
In the wilderness they ate fruit, vegetables, honey and a variety of meats including monkeys, rats, snakes, lizards, frogs, bats, birds and fish.
Alvaro said: “For Lang no part of an animal was to be wasted.
“While I was with him in the jungle I saw him eat bats as though they were olives.
“He used the heads and viscera of the rats."
The pair always kept a fire lit and made tools, cutlery and cooking utensils from materials they found in the forest.
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Life was going well for Lang until his dad's health began to deteriorate.
"Due to his father's poor mental state Lang lived the last few years full of stress and anxiety, staying awake all night long in case his father should fall into the nothingness." he said.
When the pair were eventually found, Lang was taken to a village in a car and was surprised by all the modern inventions he witnessed.
"At night, he was completely amazed by the light that came from the light bulbs.
“Lang told us that being able to enjoy light during the night was something most extraordinary," said Alvaro.
“And just after that he saw a television for the first time ever, something his father had also told him about when young.
“He knew, therefore, that the people who appeared on it weren't 'inside' the box."
Lang now spends his time in a modern village but is still ignorant to social rules.
Alvaro said: "His sense of humour is like that of a baby, copying facial gestures or reacting to hide and seek and this contributes to making Lang a very endearing person."
Thanh is not adjusting so well and his main ambition is to return to the jungle - with or without his son.
Alvaro commented: "Lang is happily adapting to his new life, mainly for the freedom he now enjoys."
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A documentary of the visit will be launched later this summer and .