Tourist documents ‘nightmare’ experience of being trapped in cable car for hours

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A tourist has described experiencing his “worst nightmare” after being stranded thousands of metres in the air for more than three hours on one of the world’s longest cable cars.

Haris Minhaj was part of a group travelling on Fansipan mountain in northern Vietnam for what should have been a 15-minute journey before an abrupt stop among the clouds.

Mr Minhaj, whose TikTok bio notes that he’s from Perth, Australia, documented the unexpected high-altitude halt in a three-minute video uploaded to social media, which has now been viewed more than half a million times.

“We are stuck… 3,000 metres above sea level,” he says, before asking someone else if they’re panicking – to which they say yes.

He proceeds to crack jokes, including telling those around him that “it’s a good way to go”, with someone replying “no dark jokes, OK?”.

After being told that they will have to sit and wait, Mr Minhal suggests that they need a “survival plan”, which includes rationing out food.

At one point in the footage, the cable car begins moving again, but the movement is slow, with frequent stops.

Mr Minhaj provides regular updates, beginning after one hour of being trapped. At that stage, it was apparently “getting quite hot” and people were beginning to panic. Over the next 30 minutes, some progress was made to get down the mountain, with the Australian stating that “the mood has certainly lifted”.

After two and a half hours, the cable car finally emerged from the clouds, with the ground in sight in the video. Once safely back at the cable car station, Mr Minhaj said: “What an experience”.

People praised the TikTok user’s upbeat attitude during the ordeal, with someone commenting on the post: “People wouldn’t [have] had a chance to worry focusing on his antics. Annoying or not, he would [have] helped them all”.

Another wrote: “At least this guy is making it fun he probably calmed everyone down”.

One comment joked that those on board had “found the guy they never want to be stuck in a cable car with”.

Despite his bravado, Mr Minhaj told The Mirror that he did panic, but “I thought: ‘Am I going to die here? Let’s stay positive and cheer everyone up.’”.