My Thailand Cave Adventure

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With all of the recent news about the cave rescue in Thailand.I thought I would share this story of a cave expedition I went on in January 2002 in Prachuab Kiri Khan, Thailand.

 

Year of the Horse
Twelfth Lunar Month
Day of the Black Moon

 

“Cave of the Sleeping Lady”

 

This story is about an adventure exploring a cave in Thailand. When I was living in Hua Hin, Thailand I got an invitation to go to a cave being the resident Geologist. Myself and a friend that had been to this particular cave before led the expedition. This was no ordinary tourist cave with stairways, walkways, hand rails, and lighting. A Thai Monk had lived in the cave for 26 years. It is quite common in Thailand for Monks to live in caves for meditation and as a hermitage. 
The Monk who had lived there was nearly 90 years old and had a heart attack. It was about a 30-minute ride up the mountain toward the Pala U waterfall. We turned down a dirt road and stopped at the entrance to the cave, to get to the cave you had to hike up some rough poured concrete steps about 5o feet. There was a large iron gate but my friend had the key to the padlock. The leader had a large spotlight. I was carrying a small but heavy back pack with extra flashlights and plenty bottled water. I would normally have my hard hat when in mines and caves so had to be careful I didn’t bump my head on some rocks. In the first part of the cave there was sort of a walkway that went straight down on a curve. Having been in my share of caves I was surprised to find that this one was warm and humid , generally caves are cool. I mean temperature cool. Inside the cave there was a Buddha statue put there by the Monk guy. I was glad to see this because it would be a landmark on the way out so we don’t get lost. In other caves we explored we would sometimes use reflective markers to follow the passage back. At the bottom was a large chamber. You don’t have get very far away from the opening of a cave to be in complete darkness. The lights revealed a large number of bats on the roof. There were a few smaller chambers that led off of the main one. I was glad to see some wiring for lights, but since the Monk was not there they were off. If one got lost you could follow the wiring out. One of my biggest fears of being in caves is getting lost. Down one corridor the roof lowered to about three feet high. You had to crawl on your hands and knees to get through for about a hundred feet. Myself and the leader where to only ones wearing long pants, experience I guess. So here I am with bats with bats chirping and flying away over my head as I crawl through this section . The chamber then opened up to where you could stand. One middle aged guy with us was huffing and puffing. It was quite strenuous as you had to climb over ledges and jump down in some spots. At one point you had to climb down a stairway carved into the rocks , some steps were 3 feet. If you missed a step you fell into a deep chasm on either side. It was also very slippery and one guy slipped and busted his flashlight and got pretty skinned up, I gave him one of my spares from my backpack.
There were some really beautiful formations in this cave. Flowstones, Travertine terraces, and Stalagmites and Stalactites (when the mites go up the tites go down) Geology lesson. The name of the cave was “Cave of the Sleeping Lady”. Now I have seen many cave formations that are supposed to resemble some object, a bird, etc. You generally have to use your imagination. However this Flowstone was one of the most perfect sculpture I have ever seen. There was her hair with a face and nose all to perfect scale, even a belly button and a leg folded up! Nature is truly remarkable. After about an hour underground we made our way crawling back through the low part we made our way back to the entrance and emerged into the Jungle and sunlight. WE all jumped into the Songthaew and headed back to town.