Tham Lod Cave, Traditional Village and Looping Along The Loop

 Setting off early the next morning we headed to Tham Lot Cave, somewhat of a throwback to Australia, it was re-discovered in the mid to late 80’s by Australian explorers! Pretty interesting, but not as interesting as the wonders that lay within.

The cave itself is a natural limestone structure, 1.6 meters in length with a fresh water stream running through the middle.

Having hired one of the village ladies (all the money you spend in or around Tham Lod actually goes directly to the village community with I love), we wound our way along a dirt track canopied by bright leaning trees.

Stopping outside the

mouth of the cave – and I now know why they call it the ‘mouth’ of a cave, it looked ready to engulf anyone who came close! – our guide, with a towel on her head (apparently this is a bit of a fashion that started many years ago and the reason behind it… well, has been lost to time) squatted down and lit an ancient looking oil lamp. It was going to be a dark journey into the cave of wonders! (Yes… totally an Aladdin reference there!)

In the three years I’ve lived in China, I’ve not really had a desire to learn the language, but seeing the joyful, learned eyes of my guide, I wished I was fluent in Thai and (nicely) suck all the knowledge from this woman! Fortunately Winai came along with me and could translate – I believe I will endeavour to learn 

Thai when I move there in a couple of years!

As we entered the mouth of the cave we were met with a flitter, slitter and slap of water, I looked down to find enormous looking black coy like creatures… 

Apparently these are called Mahseer barb… a type of carp (well done me!). Aggressive little buggers, they’re basically carnivores, eating not only insects and crustaceans… but OTHER FISH! Monstrous! I dared not pop my finger in the water….

We continued our journey, the darkness blanketing us as we moved deeper into the cave, tredding over wheat-bags filled with goodness knows what and making for a precarious walk way. Leaning down and squeezing between hanging stalactites and protruding stalagmites, which… exist only for thousands of years of drip drip dripping… natural architecture that dates far beyond the existence of humans.

As we moved through the cave, the formations of the stone changed… one looking like the flutes of an enormous organ, something you’d see in an English cathedral, another looked like Cousin It if he were petrified… either Cousin It or Snuffleupagus – either way. Then another appeared to me to be the long tooth of a dragon (or dinosaur, depends whether you’re going for fantasy or science!).

We couldn’t help but whisper in the cave, as if there were some spiritual connection between the us no, and the ancient past. We crept and crawled through caverns, stepped precariously up hand made wobbly bamboo ladders and creaking wooden bridges. No idea of time or place, swept away into a prehistoric stone jungle.

The whispering (on my part only) ended when our guide shone her oil lamp over a particular piece of stone… a piece of stone that had…

“AAAHHH!!!! OH MY GOD!” I shouted and gasped and slapped my hands to my

mouth to prevent any further utterance that may lead to an avalanche of some sort…

IT WAS A PREHISTORIC CAVE PAINTING!!!!!

Yes, my very first cave painting, and unexpected! It was a painting of a deer as well as a bow and arrow, and what looked like ferns or trees? Apparently it was drawn between 2-3000 years ago likely by a hunter… incredible. To be here looking at something created so long ago, to know there was someone standing here, thinking, breathing, living… and standing today, in the very same place. Profound to say the least.

We carried on through the dark caverns before coming upon (again, I needed to slap my hands to my mouth to stop the excited utterance of a history lover) teakwood coffins thought to have been carved some 1400 years ago… ANCIENT COFFINS!

Before my eyes ghosts rose up, the chief was dead and the people mourned, and sung… food and leaves and flowers were left on the roof of the coffin, as people milled about shrieking in grief and calling for the gods good grace… and in the smoke of incensed fires there was a whispering image of a modern day woman, staring back into the past.

Wow…

I felt so honoured to be here, in this moment, to have the opportunity to see these things, particularly with this guide and my new friend, Winai. My delight and fascination seemed to be contaminating, and we continued our dark journey with a glow of awe.

Making our way down the wobbling bamboo staircase (I went down backward

for fear of general death – I didn’t want to meet anyones ancestors just yet) we came to the shore… shore? Can you call the meeting of rock and water a shore? 

Well why not… where long bamboo rafts buoyed on the underground river, men with poles three people high, waited for journeyers to take them down stream.

Having quite recently ended up in the drink when attempting to cross a rather small river, I was wary in alighting the raft (when I say raft… really just imagine a Gilligan’s Island type length of various woods tied together with whatever ‘tying’ material may be available… whether string, rope or vine).

Fortunately I sure-footed my way up the length and assuming the raft would first reverse, sat on the chair facing the shore… At which time Winai giggled, my guide looked confused and the rafter runner shouted… No, turn around… you’re facing the wrong way.

Rather than standing and elegantly changing direction, I felt the safest option would be to hermit crab my way around the small wooden bum-bench… so I upped and squiggled, upped and squiggled, up and squiggled til I was facing the correct direction and away we went.

First a bumpy shift as the driver used his length of bamboo to push us from the shore, a rock to the left and right and soon we were easing our way, silently through the darkness. The darkness even stole the sound of our breaths, and the oil lantern shifted shadows across the cavern.

As I think of this place now, all these months ago, I still feel the sensation of

calm and wonder it brought to me. Feeling the water flow to my left and right, the ebb of the raft as the driver pushes left then right on the bamboo stick, the flutter of light on the walls as we eased past.

One of the most historic places I’ve been. I later learned that this cave was inhabited by tribes as far back as 9000 BC to 5500 BC, somewhere that tribes people started domesticating plants during the Stone Age, and created primitive tools… one of the birthplaces of civilisation as we know it now.

Coming close to a light, seemingly the exist entrance… I started to hear a flutter, and smelt a smell not overly enticing… looking us, the roof of the cave was littered with upside-down creatures, tiny leather and fluff wings, beady eyes… the eyes of bats. Clearly vampire naptime for these wee ones… their excrement littering the banks of the river.

Slowly we turned the corner, and like the breaking of dawn light fluttered, eyes focused and the outside and the inside joined together. Before my the light danced on the slow moving water, blue skies crowned the startling green of the trees. It was the greatest window I’ve ever seen.

It was the end of the journey and as I wibble and wobbled my way off the bamboo raft, hand-helped by Winai, I looked back at the crazy carp, the stalactites, the sleeping bats… then turned to the day bright and bountiful and took a deep breath of appreciation that… I was here. In this moment… I was here.

After emerging from the cave and continuing the adventure for the day we stopped at a street long street market… everything you could ever dream to have grown on the earth was there… potatoes the sorts I’ve never seen before, to all the variations of banana to bean to lettuce to legume… and the happiest of persons selling their goods.

We stopped at a traditional mountain village, many of the houses sitting rather precariously on stilts, but overlooking the most phenomenal view of easing and ebbing mountains, trees and leaves green and golden and brown and blistering red.

Winai dared me to walk up the most rickety looking staircase to the most unlikely of tree houses to enjoy the view… and while I wanted to take the higher ground… I took up said dare and the fact I’m writing to you now implies that it did not lead to my imminent death – but quite likely could have! (please note he did not join me in the tree top view!)

Carrying on to another village we wandered under four thick wooden beams with yellowing old vines hung like age weary tinsel and adorned with hand crafted straw talisman, apparently these ward off evil spirits and keep the village safe.

Dwarfed by mountains on either side, and littered with natural flora and fauna, it was another footprint into the past. The wooden and bamboo houses were constructed by those in the village, everything was the product of the hands of friends, family and neighbours. There was even a certain feel to the place, a belonging you could sense between the passing people.

Knowing my love for all things small and animal, Winai led me through the small village and to a offshoot corner… “Pig Village” he pronounced with great pride…

“Pig…” I looked over the small canyon, seeing small huts, not dissimilar to those I’d been wandering past… but somewhat smaller, somewhat closer and somewhat inhabited by…

“OH MY GOOD GLORIA!” I pronounced, much to Winai’s delight… 

“Its… its… its an actual… PIG VILLAGE… they’re all… they’re all… Winai! They are all PIGS!”

“Yes!” he said, smiling that great infectious smile of his, “Happy pigs, live in families… naughty pigs so cannot live in the village… so, have their own village!”

“Very happy pigs” I agreed… utterly destroyed with delight at this eventuation and the general existence of… a Pig Village… could the world be any more incredible?!

As we wandered back toward the entrance of the village I stopped to enjoy the traditional song of a grandfather swaying his grandson two and fro, while chicks dashed back and forth and their mother hen crowed in angst…

I seemed to have dived from a dream, and been stuck between the now and then… or maybe between honest life and what ever it is we’re doing in the West.

Back in the vehicle we weaved and wove our way through more loops than I’d ever expected to loop… Eventually we arrived at Mae Hong Son but continued through the town and up up up… to Doi Kong Mu Hill where Wat Phra That Doi Kong Mu stands. This is a temple in the Burmese style and built around 1860. 

White washed with golden steeples and overlooking the valley of the town, and the mountains to the East, West, North and South… There is a solemnity and solitude here… oh and some adorable stray dogs that I couldn’t help but play with!

I was glad to finally arrive at my hotel over looking rice fields, for the evening.

There had been so much to take in through the day… from history to nature and everything in between. 

Had I not thought myself a lucky duck before, I certainly did today… and we were only on day two of our adventure.

Thailand… stealing my heart one shard at a time.