My New Adventures

In Costa Rica I learned my lesson about leaving a good place too early. The second night I was at Cave Lodge I was looking for an excuse to stay. Literally enter Glenn, out searching for and in caves by himself he made it back to Cave Lodge well into the dark. He was planning another expedition for the following day and welcomed company. Other than the light exploration during the Kayak trip I hadn't been into any of the caves the area had to offer. Chiang Rai can wait! We met up and made our way up to the local spot for breakfast/lunch. There are very technical cooking facilities. Everything costs around 40 baht, unless you're Glenn and order the BIG serving and then around 50. AKA $1.65

I'm going to only lightly make reference to stereotypes and men asking for directions. Even with lots of stopping and asking for the caves we ended up doing quite a bit of exploring.

The cattle gates here are very interesting. I've seen several different formats but they all are lacking one thing... hinges.

After wandering around for awhile, Glenn enlisted one of the farm workers to guide us to the Tham Chadi for 100 baht. The guide was from the Karen tribe and spoke english well enough to communicate with us. Along the way we passed this school of fish in the river. According to the guide, these fish are not caught and are fed everyday. Quite the life. I don't think I've ever seen fish school in a river before.

I learn something everyday, this is a Chedi, hence the name of a cave. I've seen quite a few during my Wat visits but never caught on the name. Note the offering of orange flavored drink.

The cave wasn't very big. Apparently it's a popular meditation spot, we found chairs way in the back and a monk's robe.

Next up was Tham Long Yaow. It was referenced on the Cave Lodge map and Glenn had a GPS point from www.thailandcaves.shepton.org.uk, a website dedicated to collecting and distributing information about caves in Thailand.


Of course having a GPS point and finding the trail are two very different things. We ended up bushwhacking quite a bit. And eventually found it... too bad we were above it on a cliff band. However we did eventually find the entrance.

However we did eventually find the entrance.

The cave goes back quite a bit and a stream wound it's way in and out in the back. At one point we shucked our shoes and walked through the stream instead of the main route. Wadding through 6 inches of mud is an exercise in ignoring all the thoughts of creepy crawlies in your head. There's not much living in caves but still... And then we came across these guys hiding up in a crack. Green isn't a color you see in caves and these guys seemed a bit lost.

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There were lots of side routes to explore, by this point I was pretty tired and hungry and I left the climbing to Glenn. We headed back with a quick dunk in a stream to try to wash out the mud that we had accumulated along the way. It made for a chilly ride back on the bike but it also dried us out a bit faster. A quick dinner at the local spot again and then a nice long hot shower. A good day and a good reason to delay Chiang Rai for a day.

After sitting around all afternoon and evening at Cave Lodge, I was itching to get out. The lodge organizes different trips if there is enough interest. Best of both worlds: Kayaking and Caves. My camera isn't waterproof so all the pictures are thanks so Gidi. The token guy of the group. The girls were: Elphia, Cheo and Leng, all teachers from Singapore.

Here's Gidi, he's an electrical engineer from Israel who has a four month trip. He started in India, then Nepal, Sri Lanka and finishing in Thailand. It is near impossible to find boring people in this part of the world.

Don't blame this uninspiring picture on Gidi, it's all mine from a later day. Part of the kayak trip is through Tham Lod which I understand means Cave Through. They're not often tricky with their naming if you can translate. This is the enterance that is lined with bamboo rafts to take tourists into the cave. The guides give us lights but they're not very strong and at the beginning it is so big and dark you can lose sense of up/down and the sides of the cave.

After wandering around Thad Lod we hiked a little over to Hair Cave. So named because of some hairlike formations. Again, not tricky. We're following Elphia down here.

Big scary cave spider!

After the caves, there was lots of paddling and rapids. Everyone got hung up to varying degrees. The most impressive/difficult stuck style was when your raft was wrapped around a rock with the flowing water. However, everyone came through just fine and the highlight was sliding down the cement dams.

Back to my pictures, the girls all were done around 2 and Gidi continued down the river with one of the guides. We were famished and a bit waterlogged. After a quick shower and change, we gathered together and headed down to get some food from the vendors by the enterance of Tham Lod. This was one of the best meals I've had between the company and the different dishes that we got and shared. There was grilled chicken, papaya salad, curry, glutenous rice (extra gluten, yay!), pad thai and some fried noodles I think.

We headed back to the lodge to relax a bit before heading back to the cave to watch the swifts. At dusk thousands of swifts decend on Tham Lod and it's quite a show.

That night was the ping pong tournament which I didn't participate in but I got quite a kick out of watching the girls and the young lad from Ireland go at it. Even more entertaining was the close calls when the ping pong ball almost went into the fire or under the deck. There were several delays due to a lost ping pong ball. It was lovely spending time with Elphia, Cheo and Leng but they're off to Chiang Mai and I'm off for Chiang Rai... Or am I?

After the long day to Mae Hong Son I realized I needed to slow down a little. I had been busy every day since arriving in Bangkok. Part of the justification to myself for the length of the trip was that it would allow me to take it easy.So on to Cave lodge by Soppong for a couple of days. I woke up and headed to find some breakfast by the lake. The whole town was shrouded until fog until the sun burned it off.

The courtyard of my hotel in Mae Hong Son was very beautiful. The rooms much more basic but at time I wasn't feeling picky.

To give you an idea of the room:

Along the way I stopped at a tourist attraction, Fish Cave. It was fairly early in the morning and so very quiet. There were women selling food for the fist everywhere. The fish went mad for watermelon, melon and some sort of spinach leaves.

I took the Nature Trail which has signs on the enterance and exit but it lies, the trail disappears part way through and sort of bushwacking I had to backtrack back to the main trail.

The actual fish cave was less cave and more hole but still fun to feed to fishes.

Back to the road. I came a cross a gaggle of big bike riders from the Edelweiss tours. I've seen their trips advertised before but cool to come upon them in the middle of Thailand. The trail guide, Manuel from Italy, stayed back for a little bit to talk and we took pictures of each other for our blogs. You can see his post with my picture here: LINK along with pictures and write up from the rest of their trip which are amazing.

After a bit of back and forth on this road (I never get lost, just misplaced) I ended up at Cave Lodge. It is right by Tham Lod, a major cave and there are many many many more in the area. It's also very close to the border with Myanmar/Burma.

My little hut is all bed. This is what 300 baht or about 10 dollars gets you in the middle of the jungle. It's possible to get dorm rooms for half that but I've become old and spoiled and I like having my own space. The rest of the day was spent lazing around the lodge and catching up on reading. The lodge has a steady influx of people coming in and out from all countries. While I've been here I've met: Swiss, German, French, English, Belgian, Israeli, American, Dutch and Singaporeans. The next day would be kayaking down the riving and through a cave.