A man christened “Real Life Tarzan” after surviving 40 years in the Vietnamese jungle has died of liver cancer at age 52.
Ho Van Lang died on Monday, about eight years after he and his father Ho Van Thanh returned to civilization. The couple fled to the forest of Tra Bong district in 1972, amid bombings by American troops during the Vietnam War, which killed half of their family.
For decades they had no idea the war was over.
The men were forced to enter a nearby town in 2013 when Lang entered a village in search of medical care for his then-sick father, who died of unreported causes in 2017. Lang’s older brother, Ho Van Tri, was his only connection to civilization up to this point.
Lang’s friend Alvaro Cerezo said in a statement to Mercury Press that he had probably been produced by all the traps of a “modern life,” such as processed foods laden with chemicals.
“I’m very sad to see him leave, but for me his passing is also a release because I know he suffered in the last few months,” he said.
Cerezo paid tribute to his late friend. “He was a beautiful human being, it will be impossible to forget him, I will miss him every day.”
His family led a conventional life in Tra Kem before his escape. Eventually, they learned to hunt and hunt, cultivate crops, and take refuge in nature, and stripped to the essentials, wearing only a loincloth to cover their bodies.
For 41 years, they lived as “jungle men” until a group walking through the desert saw Lang and Thanh, seemingly distressed. A rescue team was alerted and located in August 2013.
The father had maintained some of his language skills, while Lang could only speak a few words of the regional heart language.
Lang’s brief return to his kindergarten in the jungle of Tra Bong hit the headlines in 2016. Cerezo, an explorer and businessman, camped there with Lang for five days at the time in hopes of learning from the survival expert. The two kept in touch after this time together, as Cerezo documented many of Lang’s ups and downs during his re-accommodation with society.
Cerezo said: “I did not like to see him living in civilization. I was always worried that he and his body would not be able to cope with such a drastic change.
“He had spent his whole life living in the jungle and then lived in the‘ civilized world ’, where he started eating processed foods and even drinking alcohol,” he explained.
Cerezo published a book about his friend in 2017.
“‘ The connection between us was immediate because Lang never imagined anyone would be interested in his survival skills, and he was so happy to show them all to me, ”he said. “He got so excited that he decided to go into the jungle and show me the place where I had lived all my life.”
He said of Lang’s “endearing” qualities: “He was a small child with the skills of a superhuman.”
