An hour north of Pai, we disembarked from the previously referenced Smallest Bus in the World in Soppong, a town that seems to have grown for the simple fact that nothing else seemed to occupy the space. Dusty, hot, and desolate, it has all the outward appearances of one gigantic roadside diner – waitresses may have been sassy and/or forlorn, though all I could glean from them was that they wanted the Fanta bottle back for the deposit. The place has the aura of a grizzled outpost trader that met a homely teetotaler and attempted unconvincingly to create a normal and respectable façade from his bold and untamed nature, smiling meekly, wincing from the soul.
Such were the environs when we were faced with the question of how to bridge the 9 km between the cave entrance and ourselves. Luckily, either Lauren or I was cute enough to garner a quick ride with “Ben”, a tour guide traveling to the caves, and we arrived at our destination in two shakes of a lambs tail, mostly on account of our pilot having been a former pan-African rally car champion. The sands of the Sahara sifting through his mind, daring and festive bleats of “vrrroom” squealed delightfully from his lips at every sign of uncertainty of survival from his passengers, we careened audaciously to the caves of Tham Lod.
Transportation has been a source of great amusement and great consternation.
Tham Lod, by all appearances, should inspire awe and introductory mysticism. As was explained to us, it is one of the largest cave systems in the world, plays home to millions of bats and swifts, and retains a unique and spiritual connection three thousand years into the past in the form of coffins – hollowed-out tree trunks that were placed deep within the caves to honor individuals of power and importance, yesteryear’s celebutantes and Thailand’s Idols.
Caves offer a stark contrast to modern tourism, the Texan supersized mentality of Bigger Is Better. Whereas one can appreciate the enormity of the Eiffel Tower, Mount Rushmore, or The World’s Biggest Ball of Yarn simply for the scale, a cave suffers from such dimensions; there is no sense of connection to the space. Caves’ close confines seize upon dark fears, uncertainties, animal instincts. In a massive, open area, the space is simply unfamiliar, poorly lit and rather an odd place to find one’s self, like a basketball court boarded up during a hurricane. Tham Lod’s yawning throat leading into it’s engorged belly never created suspense, and as a result its peculiarities and intricacies never engaged us, but seemed rather ineffectual, as if we were too polite to refuse a house tour of a friend’s unfurnished apartment.
Which is a shame, as we did climb narrow and treacherously steep wooden stairs high across the rock faces, used our imaginations to discern a prehistoric cave painting (faded, no doubt, by the encouraged use of flash photography), walked among ancient burial grounds, and rafted out on a bamboo skiff. Yet all I could ponder was “Can wooden artifacts really last that long? I wonder if the Ark of the Covenant could still be around, and if in some way it altered the shape of the Second World War…”
Any ideas out there regarding wood’s decomposition over millennia?
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