From Chiang Mai, I went onwards to Soppong, where I stayed at the renowned Cave Lodge.
Established by an Australian who spent decades discovering and exploring caves in the area, it is the perfect place to start a caving adventure.
It’s also a beautiful and peaceful location along a river in the woods—the kind of place where you’ll fall asleep to the sound of frogs and crickets. (Also the kind of place where you might find a huge lizard in your bathroom…)
Tham Lod is an impressive cave with a huge river entrance, and large halls filled with bats. Unlike more developed caves I’ve seen in Europe (which have only fixed fenced-up paths and are lit everywhere), here you’re following a guide with a gas lantern and are free to look around each cavern. It makes the experience a lot more fun and mysterious. While much of the cave is explored on foot, we also went in little canoes along the cave river.
We exited Tham Lod at sundown, where after a brief wait thousands of swifts began flying into the cave. According to official estimates, over 300,000 swifts are part of this daily ritual!
It’s something that is very hard to capture in words or pictures. It felt like a nature documentary moment… all that was missing was some reverent narration by the BBC’s David Attenborough.
While it doesn’t fully do it justice, here’s a video I shot of this great spectacle.
Being guided through Tham Lod Cave with only a gas lamp for light
We were taken into the cave in little canoes, and back out again around sunset
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Woah! Stunning! Caves are so fun to explore, I think it’s great that it doesn’t feel as “man-made” as other cave locations. I wish they were all like that.
If you ever visit Australia, there’s heaps of good sites over there too. I’ve been to the Capricorn Caves in Queensland (near Rockhampton) – that’s a pretty nice spot. My hometown is near Cania George, which is a massive cliff/cave/rainforest section of Queensland – that is an AWESOME spot!
You’re lucky to live there! I’m ashamed to say I have only been to one place in Australia (Brisbane, briefly) — need to visit your country properly sometime. Cania George looks awesome.
Arrr.. that is a shame! Did you get to see Brisbane, or were you just stopping at the airport?
Did get to spend a weekend in Brisbane at least, so that was cool! Went to a natural history museum that had a hairball donated by Steve Irwin, so not bad 😉