One of the things I love about travel is discovering places that you hadn’t heard of prior to arriving in the country, places that should be near the top of any ‘must-see’ list, but for some reason remain under the radar. Kong Lor Cave is such a place. A seven kilometre cave with a river running through it that you can traverse in a boat. As soon as I read about it I knew I had to go. I began asking others if they were considering heading there. Like me, most people hadn’t even heard of it. This both excited me (oooohhh, off the beaten track) and frightened me (arg……off the beaten track). But after finding that there was a direct bus to the village of Kong Lor from Vientiane it was a no brainer, I was definitely going.
Finding no-one else to join me I headed to the southern bus station in Vientiane and bought my bus ticket directly. I was there pretty early and thought I was going to be the only falang (foreigner) on the bus, but just before leaving two couples showed up, and honestly I felt more at ease knowing I wasn’t going to be totally alone. I was sitting with a local university student for much of the seven hour bus journey, who was heading home after his final exams. He insisted on sharing his food with me (he wouldn’t let me protest), and, pointing to my stomach, said he could tell I liked beer. He didn’t mean it as an insult, but now I really need to go on a diet! The further south-east we went, the more the scenery changed, from flat farmland, to giant mountains of limestone rising from the ground. Bit by bit the bus emptied, until only us falang were left, and we arrived in the tiny, one road village of Kong Lor.
The guesthouse we all booked into was run by a family with a number of young children, who immediately asked for games to play, and ended up with one of my companion’s tablets to play Angry Birds. Not for the first time either, she was good at it! They also had a tiny pet monkey, a baby macaque, so small it was still being bottle fed. We all hoped that it was a rescue monkey, and not stolen from its mother. It was the cutest little thing, and in the morning at breakfast came bounding up to hug my leg.
The five of us from the bus headed to the cave after breakfast, about a one kilometre walk away. As the boats seat three (plus driver) we split the cost evenly between us for two boats. Much cheaper for me than paying for a whole boat myself, which is what I had been expecting. We were all given life jackets (a surprising safety measure that is often missing in South East Asia) and followed our boat drivers to the entrance of the cave.
What followed was like a journey to Middle Earth. As we moved further into the cave and away from the entrance it got darker and darker, until it was pitch black except for our head lamp torches. The boat driver navigated by torch light also and there were some hairy moments when we seemed to brush perilously close to rocks jutting out of the water. There were also a few occasions where the river was so low that the boat brushed the bottom, and the driver had to get out and push.
Where the water was deep it was completely still, and the reflections on the water of the cavern above made it seem like the cavern also went down, down forever, doubling the size of the cave. Bats clung to the cavernous roof above us and we could still hear them above the roar of the boat engine. About ten minutes in the boat stopped at a small sandy area, and we got out and walked up and along a well lit area of stalactites and stalagmites. Stunning formations all around us, and while others were comparing the area to the Hobbit, and expecting to see Gollum with his precious, I suddenly had a very clear thought of the movie The Descent. Gah! I swear that film has ruined caves for me forever.
Back in the boats and into the darkness I tried not to think about scary creatures hiding just out of sight of my torch, and enjoyed the ride until we exited the cave at the other end. Not far further along the river was a small rest area with a few shacks selling cold drinks, and a gaggle of tiny cute ducklings waddling all over the place. After a rest and a drink it was back to the boats and back through the cave the way we’d come. In the other direction everything looked different and the next 40 minutes were as thrilling as when we’d first entered the cave.
Over too soon, a couple of us had a quick dip in the cool refreshing water just outside the cave entrance, before heading back to Kong Lor village. The village itself is charming, with small farms growing tobacco beneath the large limestone mountains, and cows, water buffalo and chickens roaming about. While trying to think of a witty joke as I watched some chickens cross the road in front of me, I almost missed the long, thin green snake that was slithering right in front of my feet. Eek!
