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We spent the first few days in Bangkok gathering information about potential next destinations, including trying to find out how to get visas for all the neighboring countries and how best to get there.

The bridge on the river Kwai, caving in Northern Thailand.

Odv
2006-04-13 20:08:24

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caving experience.

There was a stream going through the cave. I surprised myself by what I dared to do, as at one point you needed to duck your head under water to reach the next chamber. Originally I was scared to do this, but Ken went ahead and when I saw the light on the other side through the few centimeters of air between the water level and the ceiling I thought that I could do it too.

Of course the thought of not being able the put your head up out of the water to breathe, as the ceiling of the cave prevents you from doing that and the uncertainty of encountering stalactites that might block your way made for a lot of excitement.

I ducked my head under water and swam for about three 3 meters towards the light that Ken was holding. When I lifted my head, no ceiling stopped me. I made it!

I decidedly liked my first caving experience. New guests Jil and Pam also wanted to go caving so Ken and I joined with them for an exploration of 3 other caves with a local guide. Fossil Cave (there's a stone with fossilized shells), Spirit Cave (there are coffins) and waterfall cave (there is waterfall in the cave). I didn't know at the time that we were standing at the top of the waterfall in the cave, that in 2001 a guest from the Lodge had fallen to his death down that same waterfall. It took 3 days to recover his body!

On our last day we explored what we thought was Turtle cave (we still don't know for sure). It was getting dark outside, as I stood up in a chamber after crawling under a lowered ceiling a bat flew straight at my face. I ducked. Of course at sunset these creature wake up, trying to get out. We sat against a wall, turned off all the lights and enjoyed the flapping of the bat wings, sometimes, feeling the air on our face. When we turned on a light, we saw the chamber filled with bats flying around.

Besides the bats that we saw in all the caves, the caves were also inhabited ...