Mae Lana to Soppong: I need cave

Cave hoppin in my Jedi threads

I live! It's been a stretch since I last updated this here travel blog. I hate to make excuses, but I've been so busy trying to see it all I haven't had a moment to sit and put it all down. I reckon it's high time I brought things back up to speed as I sit in this Vietnamese cafe waiting an eternity for this funny little tin coffee drip device to leak out my beverage...it is painfully slow. Some condensing and shortcuts are in order if I'm to catch up, so here it goes!

Such peculiar scenery! This landscape definitely experimented with psychedelics when it was just hills

Though I am currently in Vietnam, I don't want to leave any gaps in history so I will pick up where I left off, when one month ago I was scootin' my buns around Northern Thailand hunting down caves and forbidden jewels:

Pigs and chickens poke around these roads, they want you to stay forever

High in the mountains of Northwestern Thailand, this land a landscape pulled straight out of a Dr. Seuss illustration. I find myself staying the night at a family homestay in this tiny squeak of a village called Mae Lana. It's set beneath lumpy, green mountains, in a little valley which supposedly holds a few caves I can creep around. I sit down in a kitchen with bamboo floor, legs criss-cross-applesauce, and share a home-cooked dinner with this warm, friendly Thai family. I have no idea what I'm eating, but it tastes like happy. Though we can't really communicate with words, gestures and smiles make due for our conversation.

Momma's cookin up somethin good while pops stirs up trouble

My room is across from the family room, where the parents and their ten year old son share the same walls. With a mosquito net draped around me I drift in and out of sleep. Roosters in the yard blare their alarm throughout the night, an earnest yet failed attempt at a lullaby. Harmonizing with the rooster, a cat screams out a guttural meow every fifteen minutes or so. Maybe he's frustrated that the night hasn't brought with it a plump little something to fill his belly, or maybe he's just looking for some pussycat. Ear plugs are foamy little miracles, I tell ya! I wake up at sunrise to drop into a cave with the father of this little homestay-household, a seasoned cave guide himself.

My homestay bedroom. Net to keep them skeeters out!

We ride our pimp-ass scooters up to Coral Cave, a winding depth covered with stalagmites that look, well, like coral. My guide, Wain (maybe it is spelled Wayne, but Wain just seems more Thai), gives me an animated tour of the place, comparing various rock formations to animals. "This one 'crocodile'! This one 'elephant'!!" It's like a cave-safari. Right on! After I get my fill of the cave I head back, pack up, and head out after I give my thanks to Wain and his wonderful wife Don Feng, the cook of my delectable Thai eats.

Hey spider dude, I dig your cave. Let me personificate you so I can better relate to you as my spider friend. We kicked it, he spun some web tricks to entertain. You're chill spiderbro, l8r!

Did I mention that on this particular day I am on a nonstop cave kick? I am determined complete at least one of the following:

A.) Discover the ancient remains of the elusive "missing link"

B.) Stumble upon an Aladdin-Tiger-Head-style-Cave stash of glittering treasure piled high from an ancient Thai Prince, 

C.) Uncover the secret lair of an evil Thai mastermind who hoards melted snowflakes (a rare and precious commodity in these parts) 

Any way you look at it, I need cave.

Soppong has my fix - this cave called Nam Lod that I'd heard whispers of back on the road a few days back. Hushed whispers. On my way there I hop over to Coffin Cave, which holds the shattered remnants of enormous wooden Teak coffins from a thousand years back. No one knows who hauled these huge coffins up into the mountainside, or why they are there. Mysteriousness! The nicest part about this cave is the basic yet heartfelt conversation I share with the family that runs the little ticket office at the entrance. 

"How-old-are-you?"

"Twenty-four."

"Our daughter same age! You like?"

Damn, check out dat thousand year old coffin up on stilts and all that. That's what I'm talking about!

Now I take a lovely weave of a ride through a shady forest towards Nam Lod. I hire a local Thai cave guide and though she speaks no English, she knows how to navigate this cave where alone one could easily get lost. She leads me along a trail that ends at this enormous, gaping mouth of a cave entrance, lined with thirty foot stalactite teeth. This cave isn't kinda big, and it's not even really big. This cave is fucking big. Seriously. You could fit a mini-mall, a  Walmart Super Center and a Denny's in this monstrosity of a space (maybe even squeeze a Starbucks in there for good measure). Call it the "Nam Lod One Stop E-Z Shopping Cave". I'm working on pitching this to the Thai Board of Cave Shopping Centers.

Nam Lot. This cave will eat your neighborhood and the mailman, twice

My cave guide pumps up this lantern like it's a basketball, then flicks it on and before I know it she's swinging around a miniature sun that would turn a vampire to ash in flash. She hails a bamboo raft like it's a cave taxi and we hop on. Did I mention there's a river running through this place? Well there is, wouldn't ya know it! A big ol' wet one.

Bamboo raft gets the job done. 

The old captain of the raft has seen some cave pirates in his day. He doesn't say so. He doesn't say a word, and that says it all.

We make various stops at points of interest along the cave river, climbing steep wooden stairways and bridges with the lantern casting light a few meters around us. This cave's got it all: sinkholes, animal-esk stalactites/stalagmites ("This one python!"), teak wood coffins, a river with fishies, and gigantic clusters of bats clinging to the high ceiling.

Don't get lost in Lot Cave, you WILL become a cave-ling

I found my way out by gnawing through four meters of solid limestone with my bare teeth over five days. I then swam up the cave river on the back of an ancient cave mermaid who I married and divorced in under twenty minutes. Turns out she wasn't the one after all.

My thirst for cave creeping has been quenched...for now. Finally I continue on to my final stop, Pai, where I just happen to run into Hazel, my Filipina friend I had met on the train to Chiang Mai a week prior. We crash a river reggae festival with two Canadian welders, a few bottles of cheap Thai rum and some hippie lettuce acquired from the women of the nearby hills. I can sum up Pai in two sentences:

"Would you mind holding this crystal while you talk? I was thinking you could give it some of your energy."

Pai - super heady