Caving, Crawling, Kayaking, & Squeezing

As an elderly (white!) male who is not particularly fit, I do occasionally like to try something (mildly) adventurous.

Early January I went on a road trip with an old friend in Mae Hong Son Province.

He already told me all kinds of exciting stories about his previous Tham Lod kayaking experience in July last year, when the water level of the Lang River was quite high.

However this time it was the cool season and the water level pretty low, so it remained to be seen if any kayaking was possible at all. We checked in at the Cave Lodge and were told that kayaking was still possible.

The only thing I hadn’t taken into account was the drop in temperature, 15 – 16 degrees is really something different from the average 28-30 degrees in Nonthaburi!

The cozy hangout of the Lodge,it even has a fire place!

The following day, early morning, it was foggy, zero sun, and freezing cold, at least it felt like that…

The whole idea of starting at 07.00 seemed like total madness and we quickly agreed to postpone it to a later time, preferably when the sun was finally around.

A German tourist who was joining us quickly agreed as well. We informed the staff who were quite relaxed about it and we decided to start at 10.00 instead. Actually changing the time wasn’t such a big deal as the kayaks and guides were all nearby. Having a hot coffee and rice soup helped getting me alive again and after breakfast, we went for a walk through the neighbourhood.

It definitely is a rural area, with lots of forests, mountains, hills, and all kinds of houses on both sides of the street, incl. a school and some mom-and-pop shops. Back at the Lodge we changed into more suitable gear and met our 3 guides as well as our German companion for the trip.

The guides handed out life jackets and safety helmets and afterwards we put our belongings into a waterproof container. We walked with the guides (who shouldered the inflatable kayaks) to the riverside.

The guides would be behind us and do the real paddling and steering of the kayaks which suited me fine as I wanted to take lots of photos of course.

The first part of the kayaking was very relaxed, occasionally I even paddled as well.

Ready Frans?!

Our German companion

Look over there! Where? There!

At the entrance of the massive Tham Lod cave, we got out of our kayaks and observed the huge amount of fish which are regularly fed by visitors.

We followed the guides into the cave where they handed us special lights which we could strap to our safety helmets.

The cave was massive and (no surprise!) dark, we could barely see the bats hanging from the ceiling.

In addition, they had more powerful spotlights which they used effectively, pointing out specific stalagmites & stalactites.

Following one guide on foot through the cave maze was fun, but also a bit challenging as we went up & down at times slippery slopes.

We saw a few other tourists on bamboo rafts passing by.

Time to get off guys!

The final part we did by kayak, the sunlight exit was a welcome sight.

From there we went on a short jungle hike into another cave section.

A quick snap before entering the cave...

This one involved more crawling and squeezing through narrow openings, tricky.

The weirdest thing there were a kind of spider worms that had vertical ‘webs’ consisting of single sticky threads hanging from the ceiling, I had never seen anything like that before!

Stalactites in their early stage...

Bumpy rapids...

Back at the exit, we climbed into our kayaks for the last and most exciting part as it took us across several rapids and 2 small (but almost vertical!) waterfalls, where I found out the hard way that my mobile could survive a short dip underwater!