Closeup — Caving in Vang Vieng (Post # 78)
Mike reports–
Having decided to stay an extra day in Vang Vieng, we got up early this morning to get our breakfast and purchase another bus ticket to Vientiane (since we were forefitting the ticket for today’s bus). On the 2km walk back from town to our Bungalow, we met a man standing with his tractor-hybred tuk tuk underneath a sign advertising Pou Kham Cave and indicating the same cave was 6km away. Since we had decided to stay an extra day in Vang Vieng because we wanted to go caving, we asked the driver how much. He explained in very broken English that he would drive us to the cave, wait for us and bring us back for $2/person or 20,000kip. We were really just trying to do some preliminary research about the costs of hiring a tuk tuk but the driver got so excited about the prospect of our business we ended up trying to explain to him we needed to go back to our room for 30 minutes first. This was a real struggle. After we walked away with the understanding he might be waiting for us to go back to our room before taking the trip to the cave, he came running after us to try to sell us again. I tried to break it down to the most fundamental English and i think i got the idea across because he smiled and said OK. As he began walking back towards his tuk tuk, we hurried along to our room. Thirty minutes later, we were walking back up the hill towards the main road in this town where our driver was expected to be waiting. We were pleased to see he was. This is what the modified tuk tuks of Vang Vieng look like–
After he got the tractor engine running strong, he headed off down the road out of town. We had already ventured down this way yesterday on foot so we had a fairly basic familiarity with the sights in this direction. Admitedly, i did not think we were going to cross the first river where we did but i guessed right that we would be avoiding the bridge tolls (most of the bamboo footbridges, which also happen to allow motorbike traffic, require a toll of 2000kips) by driving straight through the water. Here’s a picture of us driving through the river–
Upon arriving at the other side of the first river we were still familiar with the lay of the land because of our brief exploration of “the other side” last night. Twenty minutes after leaving, we decided we were glad we had decided to catch a ride because it would have been a long walk (we’re pretty sure it was closer to 10km). Along the road we came across a German family carrying what looked like picnic supplies. Our driver offered them a ride to Pou Kahm cave. They replied with a cost inquiry. They were given the incredibly reasonably offer of 5000kip/person (there were five of them). Apparently this was too much for them because they weren’t interested after they heard the price. Five minutes later Michele and i were taking bets as to whether or not they were going to make it the whole way to the cave on foot. When we got to the cave we left the driver with the understanding that he would be waiting for us after we came out of the cave. However we had already decided we didn’t want him to drive us the whole way back to where we started — we intended to walk back most of the way and explore some of the other caves along the way.
After we payed the reasonable 10,000 kip / person (about 95 cents U.S.) entrance fee to the cave site, we walked a bridge across the beautiful swimming lagoon. We were a lot more interested in the cave itself than we were in the swimming lagoon so we snapped a few photos and headed in the direction indicated by the “this way to cave” sign. A 30 meter walk brought us to the base of a steep, rocky footpath. Several sections on the way up required the use of our hands — not exactly easy access but upon reaching the mouth of the cave, we were certainly glad we made the climb.
A picture of the cave mouth from the inside looking out–
Not surprisingly, there were a few small boys waiting at the cave entrance to offer us a guided tour. We declined on the offer and proceeded inside with Michele’s old 3-l.e.d. headlamp and Mike’s new (bought here yesterday for $5) 7-led. Once inside the gaping opening to this incredible cave, we realized there was much for us to see even before we’d need to turn the headlamps on. This cave was spectacular with so many interesting limestone shapes…
…and even a small “garden” inside where the sunlight sometimes shines through the cave mouth–
We spent over an hour exploring as deep in this cave as we dared. We are sure there was much, much more to explore but besides being somewhat less than confident in our neophyte caving skills, we had other caves to see…
After leaving the cave and climbing back down the precarious slope to the lagoon, we decided to eat our two sandwiches before heading to our next cave. We enjoyed our cheese and vegetable sandwiches while watching the German family play in and around the lagoon, swinging on the rope swing and diving in. Guess we were wrong about them not being able to make it…
We took the bamboo bridge back across the lagoon to where our driver had parked. We told him we were ready to go and away we went. About half-way through the 10km ride back to town and at the sign post for Numborkeo Cave, we asked our tractor man to stop. Tractor man seemed to be a bit confused about what we intended to do but we said goodbye and headed down what was supposed to be a 1km trail to the cave.
About 800m later, we came to a man in a small hut who, after greeting us in English, produced a pack of cave entry tickets. We paid the 5000kip/person entry and he offered us a light to take into the cave. We graciously accepted the free extra light (Michele has never been satisfied with the amount of light produced by her 3-l.e.d.) and walked off to check out the cave. We hiked along a footpath through some beautiful bannana tree orchards…
…bamboo forests…
…and arrived at a small clear-water lagoon near the cave’s entrance…
Another tourist was headed away from the cave with a guide we expect he had inadvertently hired. Michele snapped a couple of nice pictures of the lagoon and we met a small boy who wanted to show us into the cave. The boy must have been about 8-10 years old and knew a handful of English words including “cave,” “go” and “name”. This cave was quite unlike the first cave we entered. Here the spaces inside the cave were much smaller and required just a small amount of squeezing. About one third of the way in, we came into a chamber with a ceiling about 10 ft over our head and our young guide pointed us to the largest bat either of us has ever seen in the wild (probably 10 inches bodylength). While i was fairly confident there was nothing at all to fear from this bat, Michele was a bit fearful. She later explained she just didn’t know what behavior to expect from a bat and half-expected it to attack her.
We managed to get a pretty decent picture of the bat–
On the walk back from the cave to the ticket hut, i gave the boy his tip of 5000kip (for guiding us) and he allowed me to get a couple of photos with him–
Upon parting ways with our small guide at the ticket hut, we gave him one of the Bic pens left over from our tour of Tanzania (purchased with the intention of giving them to small Tanzanian children). He seemed pleased.
Once we got back to the main road, we took a right and headed for the signpost of the cave we found last night. Here is a picture of the trail to the ticket hut after turning off the main road. The cave is actually formed in that limestone karst behind me.–
Last night we even paid the 5000kip / person entrance fee without actually seeing any caves. It got too dark. This afternoon we ended up paying 7000kip / person for what was supposed to be two caves. After paying today, the “employees” offered us a light which Michele accepted. Next thing we knew we were following a teen-age boy holding a flashlight down the trail to the cave entrance. We knew this boy thought he had become our guide but we were feeling confident about making our own way to the cave and inside. I told him “no guide.” he said “yes guide.” i said “how much?” he said 10,000 kip. i said “no more kip. no money.” he said “5000 kip.” i said “no guide.” Despite our attempts to discourage him, we were still following him the whole way to the cave. Again i tried to explain to him that we didn’t want a guide. Nevertheless, he led us into the cave.
Here is a view of the town from the cave entrance–
This was another smaller cave. We saw the most amazing spider inside though. Not only was this spider’s leg-span at least 4 inches across, the body was heavy and the fangs were at least 2cm in length. This kinda freaked me out — and i don’t have a fear of spiders. I have never seen one of this size in wild. incredible! unfortunately, we were in a little too much of a hurry away from this spider to get a picture. sorry!
After leaving the cave, we managed to shrug off the requests for a “tip” from our “guide” and we headed back towards the ticket booth. Along the way, to our surprise, we found signs to yet another cave. At the ticket hut a kind, older Lao gentlemen offered us lights (one of which Michele used), walked us up to the entrance and a little way into the cave itself. This was the tightest squeeze yet but still wasn’t quite as small as the crawlspaces we encountered in Hungary. Michele and i continued about three minutes walk/climb after our guide left us but didn’t find anything we hadn’t seen before. Rumor has it there is a small pool with fish somewhere past where we turned around. Maybe there is and maybe there isn’t.
After leaving the cave grounds, we walked the 500m back to the first toll bridge and bought a couple of beer Lao to enjoy back at the hotel room. A great conclusion to our fantastic day of caving…
— btw, these 650ml beers were less than $1 each.
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Tags: Category #21: Laos
Michele Harmon
wow…what amazing pictures! you guys have taken so many amazing shots but these are pretty outstanding even compared to those! the caves look so creepily delicious! 🙂
hope you love vietnam…i’ve heard such wonderful things about it. can’t wait to get your take on it…
I love the picture of Mike and your young guide! It seems like the price was right for all your caving adventures so far in Laos!
I guarantee that bat would have freaked me out, too!
sent me running! For sure.