Sean an I left Pai Monday morning on
our scooter, caravanning with another traveler-friend who we
discovered also happened to be headed to Cave Lodge for the night. We
planned to meet Beth and her parents—who were on their way up from
Bangkok—at the lodge sometime in the afternoon. Soppong is about an
hour away from Pai by car, but with the steep, windy roads, and our
manually geared scooter, it took us a bit longer to get there. There
were even a few points during the drive when our scooter, motor
whirring, stopped dead on a hill and refused to go any further. We
shared a good chuckle at one point when I was forced to get off and walk while
Sean coaxed it up a particularly steep section of road. Our new friend
Sam waited patiently at the tops of the hills for us, and the three
of us eventually made it to the lodge.
Shortly after we arrived, we spotted
another couple walking in who we'd made friends with in Pai. They had
caught a bus that morning and were also
planning to spend the next few days exploring the area around
Soppong (in our experience, serendipity is a ruling factor in
Thailand, and this sort of coincidence no longer surprises us). We
hung for a while, talking and relaxing in the hammocks at the lodge.
When the rest of the group arrived, Beth introduced us to her parents
and the close family friends whom they were traveling with. It
immediately proved true that 'more' really was 'merrier' as the eight
of us we made our way down to the cave.
Tham Lod—also known as Lod Cave or
Spirit Cave—was occupied by the Hoabinhian hunting tribe during the
prehistoric era from about 9000BC to 5500BC. They were a stone age
community of hunters and gatherers who used tools, made ceramics,
domesticated plants, and created art—some of which you can still
see in the cave.
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| If you look closely, you can see the faint outline of a deer in this picture taken inside the cave |
We hired two guides with lanterns who
led us to bamboo rafts which we would use to make our way along the
stream and into the cave. Relishing the cool air, we situated
ourselves on the rafts and prepared to enter. As we began floating
down the stream and into Tham Lod, we noted its huge vaulted ceiling
and numerous impressive formations.
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| Beth, her parents, Sam, and one of our guides on a bamboo raft. |
After a brief ride, the guides
pulled our rafts up to a bank within the cave and we disembarked.
Following them up several sets of rickety stairs, we explored the
first of the caves three major 'rooms'. Each new area we entered was
different from the ones before it, and we were continuously awed as
we caught sight of the caves various structures.
Some of the rooms even
contained a few well preserved teakwood coffins. These coffins, thought to have been carved by the Lawa tribespeople who also
inhabited the area, date back thousands of years, and when discovered
contained fragments of bone and pottery.
When we returned to the bamboo rafts to
make our way to the cave's exit, our guides pointed out the many fish
surfacing nearby. We lamented having not purchased the fish food that was
for sale at the entrance as we passed by countless absolutely massive
catfish and trout on our way down the last section of stream. Even in
the dim light of the cave, we could see that most of them were well
over sixteen inches long, and some were easily a shocking three feet or
more in length (clearly they got plenty to eat and were no
worse off for not having been fed by us!)
When we arrived at the exit of the
cave, we were able to witness the impressive “Bird and Bat Show”
which takes place there every day at dusk. As the sun sets each
evening, an estimated half a million birds (swifts, to be precise)
return to the cave to roost for the night while at the same time,
thousands of resident bats leave the cave, where they've been
sleeping all day. Not only do these two winged species harmoniously
share the same living space, but they put on quite a show each evening
when they trade places (and I presume each morning when they switch
back as well, although there was no mention of a morning viewing).
Feeling completely satisfied with our afternoon adventure, we headed back to Cave Lodge where we enjoyed an easy in-house dinner
and the company of our temporary travel companions.
In the morning, Beth led her crew on
to explore their next destination (Pai) while Sam, Sean and I decided
to stick around for the day and check out another cave. We'd read in the literature at the lodge about “Christmas Cave”, which
was a bit further off the beaten path, but still close enough for a
day-trip. After getting the scoop from the staff at the lodge, and
taking some snap shots of the maps on the wall showing how to find
the cave, we set out. We rode our motor bikes up the road a few
kilometers, keeping our eyes peeled for the landmarks on the maps. When we thought we might be in the right place, we
parked our scooters, and began the hike in. Having recently read
about the various kinds of poisonous and non-poisonous snakes of
Thailand and their favorite habitats, I insisted we stick to the
barely visable path, which did little to ease my mind about the
possibility of one of us getting bitten. It was almost unbearably hot
as we made our way across the field and up towards the “knob”
where the cave entrance was located.
It took us a while to find it, but we
eventually spotted what we thought might be the entrance, tucked away
at the base of a large cliff. There was a rickety bamboo ladder
peaking over the edge of a steep section of rock and leading down to
what, from above, merely looked like a shallow overhang that a child
might be able to squeeze
underneath. With no clear indications that we'd found the
right place (and in fact nothing whatsoever to reassure us that going
down the ladder was the correct way to enter the cave) we retraced
our steps a bit back to the trail, and attempted to search for one of
the other two entrances shown on the map. After a few meters though,
the trail abruptly ended, and (still wary of snakes) we were forced
to either return to the ladder, or abandon our search all together.
We decided to at least give it a shot, and Sean held the ladder
firmly while Sam and I both climbed down (yes, in that order—no
way was I going down first!)
Once we'd determined that the
hole was much larger than it looked from above, and we could, in
fact, enter this way, Sean descended as well, the two of us steadying
the ladder from the bottom. Now we were spelunking. We were all somewhat off-put when we
discovered a second ladder leading the rest of the way to the
entrance, but this one turned out to be far easier to navigate than
the first.
By stepping carefully down the steep,
gravel covered slope we were able to shine our lights into the cave
and get a good look at many of it's formations. The columns near the
entrance shinned brightly in reflection of our headlamps. Their
millions of twinkling white crystals reminded me of a fresh dusting
of snow on a sunny morning and, combined with the icicle-esque shape of many of the formations, were no doubt the reason for the
cave's wintery name. Bats swooped over head, chattering at us
incessantly for disturbing them from their inverted nap. Though we
didn't feel comfortable venturing further inside for fear of sliding
down the lose-dirt covered incline (or worse, not being able to get
up it again) we stood for a while, enjoying our peek into the cavern
and conversing about the marvels of caves—places none of us have
spent much time visiting before.
After soaking in as much of the cave's
cool, underground air as possible, we braved the heat and returned to the trail, making our way down to our scooters and back to the lodge. Dusty and hot, we enjoyed a quick dip in the river before heading back over the pass and 'home' to Pai.
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