When I said on facebook that I was in Chiang Mai/Pai, one friend linked me to www.cavelodge.com and another said to float down a raft through Tham Lod cave. Turns out these places next to each other. When you visit the cave, the place to stay is Cave Lodge! And then I found it in the Lonely Planet, which describes it as a legendary place to stay, being the longest running guesthouse in Mae Hong Son province, and John Spies being the unofficial expert of the area.
John Spies came to Thailand in 77, just passing through. But he met Diew, the first female trekking guide in Chiang Mai, and for years they trekked and lived with the hilltribes in this area. In 1984 they built Cave Lodge. John has written a book about his life on the border (it’s 10km to Burma). Murder, overdose, caving accidents, land rovers without brakes, opium, hilltribes and so much more. I read most of it while sitting in the lodge, but not all, so I bought the book on cd, so have it as a pdf. Amazing, fascinating, crazy, scary, awesome stuff.
To get to Cave Lodge and Tham Lod, Julie and I took a local bus from Pai to Soppong (one hour over beautiful winding road), then a motorbike taxi the last 9km. Going back we had to wait 2 hours for that local bus in Soppong, and when it arrived I considered it full. We squeezed on anyway…! Standing on a bus for an hour on a very winding road while not feeling great was interesting, but mostly fun!
We didn’t meet John or Diew or his new wife unfortunately, they are in Australia at the moment.
We enjoyed the scenery (Cave Lodge is on a river bank overlooking forest) and wandered around a bit through the local village. At 4pm we went to Tham Lod, and luckily we met two Tjech Republican backpackers at the entry, as you pay for a guide and raft for 4 people, and you can’t go in without either.
We visited several different sections of the cave, some very large areas with beautiful formations, a section with a painting of a deer that was 2-3000 years old and an area with 1500 to 2000 year old coffins. There are many “Coffin Caves” in the area and this was one of them! Apparently in other caves the coffins are still high up on stilts, and there are bone fragments.
Then we headed to the exit of the cave, timed with sunset. Thousands of bats were flying out for the night, and thousands of swifts (small birds) fly in. A spectacular sight! And smelly, there’s poo everywhere!
