Exploring the largest cave in Laos, Adventure Time!

We ventured deep into the heart of Laos, travelling out of the tourist track and, well, beyond the roads and civilisation to bring you this adventure. Get ready for long journies by tuktuk, boat and walking, interesting new foods, a surprising marriage, and a huge communication gap! Danger, excitment, new lands and cultures abound in this post!
 And I’m going to tell this story through photos….so grab a cup of tea and sit back and scroll…

I saw the photos above when we flew into Laos, and decided I HAD to see this amazing cave, Xe Bang Fai. National Geographic ran an article ‘Gigantic River Cave discovered in Laos’ in 2008. However internet searches revealed very little info on where it was and how to get there. But I was determined! (And as some of you might know also rather driven).  

I contacted the park rangers of the Hin Nam No Protected Area where the cave is situated. They have a small website ( hinnamno.org ) and only just started to open up the protected area to tourists end of 2013. Its relatively unheard of within Laos and not even mentioned in guidebooks…..however….
I spoke to the lovely Vanhxay at the Hin Nam No office who was very keen to help us see the cave despite our lack of transport options. Turns out, Xe Bang Fai is not accessible by public transport, and you need to have a car/motorbike – which we didnt. She said she’d contact us once she found more info. At this point we were in Luang Prabang and were going to change our itinerary to do this, but 2 days before we weren’t sure if it would work out!

We took a bus blindly down to Thakhek which was the nearest big town and crossed our fingers the next day we would somehow get to Xe Bang Fai. Thakhek is on one side of Laos just over the river from Thailand border of Laos, and Xe Bang Fai borders Vietnam. The other side of the country! 

Luckily we got to speak to Vanhxay when we got into Thakhek late that night, and she had organised transport for us! Phew. 

Love the instructions she gave me:
Get to bus station at Thakhek and Catch the 8am public bus to Langkang
Ask for Mr Singh who can take us by private bus to Pakpanung
Look for Mr Lee who will take us on his boat upriver to the tiny village of Nong Ping where the cave is near.
Then we will do a homestay with local food, but take extra food in case there is a shortage. There are no restaurants and no english.

Late that night I downloaded a Laos-English dictionary to help us and packed some 2 minute noodles just in case, bought a few bottles of water and some gifts for kids.
The next morning we were off and away!!!

And here I am with our goodies and our ‘public bus’ (tuktuk) at 8am ready to leave! Joining us on this trip were:
The fish swimming in the two dripping bags you see here….

BUT- Just as we managed to pack the bus, we were waylaid by a ‘people roadblock’ in the middle of the countryside. They stopped the tuktuk and proceeded to grin and pin plastic badges on everyone and then ask for donations in a monks offering jar. We realised they were hustling for money to build a temple. Roadblocking Buddhists, who knew?!

The bus grew more crowded and tightly packed, but finally we arrived in LangKang 5 hours later. Only a couple of hours behind schedule!
We had a brief lunch and went off to find Mr Singh at the Bus Station.

Unfortunately Mr Singh was ill and no one knew who we were or what to do with us. Finally after frantic phone calls and crazy hand signals we managed to get someone to drive us to PakPanung – which is only 30min down the road. So why was it so difficult to arrange?
Well, LangKang is the final public bus stop for this area. The WHOLE area. So, from here on out, you’re on your own.

We drove along an unpaved, ungraded dirt track, with rocks the size of boulders, deep crevices and potholes, passing people on tractors, and bumping our heads on the roof. It was a hazardous ride and better suited to a 4 wheel drive rather than a tuktuk – but we got there in the end!
Dropped off on one side of the river near PakPanung we crossed a freezing river with our gear to find Mr Lee.

We arrived in Ban Nong Ping a tiny village (ban) right near the border of Vietnam. Its only a few km south of the Ho Chi Minh trail into Laos and was also heavily bombed by the US and Viet Cong. Here is what it looks like today.

We met our diminutive and exhuberant host mother, and were shown our homestay house. A large gathering room with a tv and one light, a verandah which was a kitchen/bathroom, and a cooking room.

Suddenly we met a whole group of girls aged 7-10 yrs who had treked back from the Xe Bang Fai river. Not sure which were her daughters, we watched them begin cleaning tiny fish, ba, they caught at the river, and then cook their dinner without any adult supervision or help. We were both stunned at the autonomy shown by these girls who seem to have great fun preparing their communal dinner while our host mother cut up bamboo shoots for our dinner. 
I mean think about it, would you see a whole group of neighbouring girls come into your kitchen and prepare their dinner with no help at all?! 

Dinner, Bamboo shoot soup with chilli, lots and lots of chilli – Makpet. Soon we learned that chilli is a staple food here, like salt might be for us. 
We were taught how to eat Lao style, roll the sticky rice, khao, into a ball with your fingers and dip into the soup. 
Then later eat the bamboo with a spoon. Everyone shares one soup bowl, oh and add chilli liberally…

While my tongue burned off, we sat around with the village adults who all came to visit and investigate the ‘farangs‘ (foreigners). The tv was turned on, betel nut was passed around and the chewing and watching commenced. 
We tried hard, but it was difficult to communicate as my dictionary could translate words but most of the adults couldn’t read (which I’d not fathomed at all), and our pronounciation attempts sucked.  However, our host mother was most insistent and loud, she’d repeat Lao words and yell them at us until we figured it out. We learnt quite a bit in those 2 days!!

The next morning we woke up at 5am (a bit late for Lao people) and then got ready to head out to the cave. Before this was to happen our host mother was busy setting up something. Soon we found ourselves surrounded by the village elders, who grabbed one hand each and then started chanting. They wrapped a white threads around our wrists and gave us boiled eggs and sticky rice to eat. It was confusing to say the least. However at the end of this ceremony our host mother chanting sami & palanyar (husband and wife) we realised we had just been married Laos style!

I was super excited as our host mother took us to another house in the village and yelled until a young boy of 15 climbed out with his gear, and locked up the house. Locking up involves taking away the leaning ladder against his house.
With that done we walked down to the National Protected area where the cave was. He stamped some tickets and then got his sister to watch the ticket booth (seriously!) from a nearby hammock, as he escorted us down to the cave. And wow. 

We clambered into a tiny boat and were given headlamps before setting out into the dark cave. Deeper and deeper we went, until the light slipped away and our lamps formed small spots in a huge black space. It was surprising that the cave was full of life, river fish spalshed in the water which echoed off the walls, the cave birds chirped and bats flapped high above us.

Back at our homestay we were served a tasty and traditional lunch. Ant, chilli and bamboo salad. Yum.

I went for a river shower along with most of the village ladies and Greg went off walking around the surrounding karst landscape. On my way back I met these girls who had just finished filling up lots of water bottles to take back to the village.

All too soon it was time to leave, Mr Lee our boatman turned up at 5am and we sadly said our goodbyes and trudged back to civilisation…

Next stop! The 4000 Islands that borders Cambodia, hammocks, swimming and Irawaddy Dolphins!
Till next time
Jade & Greg xx