Scott and Dave in a Cave!

Although the Ginny Springs-like Vang Vieng is known for it's river tubing and happy mushroom shakes, it's the panoramic view of huge, dollopy limestone mountains, like giant green, jungle-covered gumdrops, overlooking a wide open Mekong river valley that you'll remember of this place. The town is full of falang (Laos' version of farang) -catering bars showing endless episodes of Friends, Family Guy, and the Simpsons. But once you get past these annoying reminders of home, the country-side offers a breath-stealing landscape riddled with caves and cool mountain springs. It was one such cave that Modini and I almost didn't make it out of. We came upon this obscure cavern by chance, biking up a pebbly country-road on ill-equipped beach cruisers, following a jankity old sign that advertised the cave, a large Buddha statue and "a great adventure, and pointed to China. After an hour of bone-jarring bike-pedaling, we found the cave situated in a tangle of forest just off the rocky road. There was a small lean-to hut tucked into the thicket surrounding the cave’s entrance, where a woman and her two children were whiling away the day. It didn’t seem likely that they would be out here in the middle of the jungle, several kilometers away from town waiting for visitors to happen by, but sure enough there was a hand-painted sign perched on a pole that read, “Cave Crossing 10,000 Kip.” The cave must’ve had an average of two visitors a week, and we had just filled their quota. We assumed the 10,000 kip just an entrance fee and happily gave the woman our money, but we soon found out that entrance to the cave was free and we had just purchased the company of her teenage son as our minimal English-speaking tour guide. He gave me his name, which I had difficulty making out, but it sounded similar to Haha, so that's what I'll call him. His initially unwelcome accompaniment turned out quite necessary, as we had neglected to bring flashlights.

The cave entrance was deceptively modest, appearing at first glance as just a shallow pocket in the side of a hill. I expected to wander a few meters into a cool shelter of stone, take a few snapshots of a weathered Buddha statue, and then move on down the road. However, much to the chagrin of my flip-flops, we soon found ourselves descending a very steep and slippery slope through a hole to Hades. Very early on in our spelunk, we realized that both of our flashlights were absolute crap, and would provide just enough light to show us the sides of a bottomless pit on our way down, or the low-hanging stalactite only after the damage was done; shit, the stars in my eyes after hitting my head on just such a stalactite provided more light. Our best bet was to stick as close to our pint-sized tour-guide as possible, who seemed to need no light at all. After only a few minutes of pitch-black stumbling, our fearless leader told me to stop, turned my torso towards what I imagined was a wall, and told me to take a picture. I eagerly did as I was told, suddenly remembering the flash on my camera and the spatial enlightenment it would bring. As the first flickering of my camera commenced, I became immediately aware of large phantasmic toes not a few feet in front of me, and the ghostly statue of Buddha, carved right out of the cave wall, was revealed. I have to admit that it startled the shit out of me, as you’ll notice in my pictures that in the first one I took I dropped the camera. Just imagine seeing absolute pitch blackness, then all of a sudden, “Whoop, there’s God!”

Now that we had seen the Statue, and had been without light for several minutes now, I presumed that our journey was close to an end. We would soon find out that there was much more cave to not-see. On and on the cave went, twisting and turning, or for all I knew we were walking around the same stalagmite over and over; it was that dark. Not until we reached the darkest recesses of this hole-way to Hell did Haha reveal to us his sense of humor. We were led to one side of the “path”, as Dave and I lifted the weak beams of our flashlights to a rocky shelf where dwelt some cave spiders. Amazed that Haha knew exactly where to look for these arachnids, I was about to ask him if they were poisonous when his true intention in showing us the little beasts came to deafening realization. Our backs to him, distracted by the spiders, Haha came up behind us and began pounding on a nearby stalactite with a large loose rock. The reverberating clang sounded as if he'd struck a cast-iron pot with fire-place poker. I felt like we’d just stepped under the Liberty Bell and my brain had cracked open. Then Haha haha’d and continued on his way, with us biting the dust. I couldn’t blame him for taking advantage of a couple falang, but neither could I blame myself for wanting to wring his little neck.


After a few more minutes of sightless groping, we came upon a narrow passageway that required us to shuffle along side-step at a forty-five degree angle. It was at this point that Dave turned to me and said, “I don’t know about you man, but I’m starting to reach my limit.” Despite Haha's hijinx, I was doing fine, having visited caves in New Mexico, Arizona, and the Appalachian States that required much more of me. I was just a little perturbed at the sorry state of our torches, and that the only signs of human passage were an ancient statue that we'd passed eons ago and one or two hand-painted arrows on the wall that seemed to be leading us to America. However, I could soon hear the cave-gods laughing up at us from their subterranean realm as if to say, “Fuck your limits, Dave.” After our forty-five degree dance, Haha was suddenly nowhere to be found. After a few seconds of blind panic, his voice returned to us from somewhere around our ankles, beckoning to us to get on our bellies and follow him through a hole that was just wide enough to admit our beer-buoyed bellies. In fact, if we weren’t lubed up in nerve-induced sweat, we might not have been able to squeeze through. But down we went, sliding inch by inch on a combination of perspiration, cave-mud, and a healthy fear of dark, enclosed places. Judging from D-Mo’s heavy breathing, he was having a rough time, and I was proud and shocked at every second he soldiered on, with just a few encouraging words from me. I can’t possibly convey how claustrophobic this tunnel would make even the most diehard agoraphobe feel, but let’s just say we were reenacting that movie The Descent, minus the pigment-lacking, flesh-eating mutants, of course. At one point, he would tell me later after the whole ordeal had ended, Dave just wanted to stop crawling and take a nap, exhausted with fear, hoping that in his slumber Haha and I would just drag him out to freedom. After what seemed like an hour, Haha’s now angelic voice told us we had to endure only one-minute more of this hellish scrape through the bowels of the Earth. I started to count the seconds, Dave picked up his pace, and sure enough, 57 seconds later, we were able to stand on our knees. Having felt like we’d just crawled through the entrails of Beelzebub himself, we collapsed on a couple of rocks, wiped the sweat and grime from our faces and clothes, and took a well-deserved breather. After a few seconds, I looked over at D-Mo and offered him a hearty guffaw which he still wasn’t in the mood to return. So, I gave him a minute’s peace and clambered back down to the hole to take a few snapshots of our would-be tomb. Can’t wait to show them to you, though they won’t do a bit of justice to what we actually went through.