Many years ago I visited the Cave Lodge in northwestern Thailand. It was indeed a fine place though the proprietor, an Aussie, hated Americans, for which I accused him of gross hypocrisy since they are just like us. The cave in question is Tham Lod, a fine big river cave with nicely decorated fossil passages and artifacts. To explore it I was issued a small boy with a Coleman lantern and an even smaller short legged dog. (Note: All commercial caves in every part of the world other than Europe and North America offer small boys with Coleman lanterns as guides). The dog led the way, bravely swimming the river and hopping from rock to rock inside the cave. Along the way we encountered a most peculiar artifact, a bamboo pole standing upright which had been affixed to the river bottom. From it's tip dangled a short line and a snakelike loach. I would have supposed it to be some kind of snare, but upon closer inspection I discovered that the loach was tied to the string, so apparently it was some kind of magical sign, especially in view of the weird effigy I later discovered. Eventually we reached a very rickety bamboo ladder about thirty feet tall which led from the roaring river below up the cliff to the fossil passages above. The kid scampered up, then I ascended with some trepidation. I assumed that the dog would simply go home, but to my amazement it began to jump up the ladder from rung to rung. I had never seen an arboreal short legged dog before, so as it reached the top rung I took a photo. The flash blinded the plucky pooch so it lost it's footing and tumbled over backwards into the rushing river and was swept away further into the cave, presumably never to be seen again. The kid was stricken that his poor little dog was lost, but he had a job to do, so we continued exploring until we reached the wondrous pile of coffins full of snakes for which the cave is justly famous. The age of the wooden coffins is unknown, but they are clearly ancient. In them, mingled with the remains, were fine big cave racers, Elaphe taeniura, which are close cousins to our own chicken snakes. E. taeniura ranges from Taiwan where it lives outside, grows to enormous size, and is known as the Beauty snake, throughout eastern and southern China, then down into Indonesia. The further south one goes the more troglobitic they become such that in the caves of Mulu in Borneo they are almost white and live exclusively on bats. Caves full of snakes and dead people are the best! Lets not forget all the other creepie crawlies. The cave was full of bats, and as a result hosted a prolific fauna of guano munching roaches, spiders, crabs, amblypigids, beetles, moths and other leg nibblers. I was admiring all this when, to my complete surprise, the little dog returned! It had somehow swum back upstream, ascended the ladder, then navigated the cave all in complete darkness! I was eager to get away from the nasty Aussie, so the following day I joined two fine fellows for a day long trek to the nearby village of Soppong, famous for its opium. Jamie was an Aussie himself, but a libertine so we got along fine. The other fellow, a Kiwi, later disappeared in the gold fields of Papua and was presumably eaten by cannibals. The trek was magnificent, passing along pine clad ridges overlooking karst in the verdant valleys below. At one point we overlooked a vast jungle covered dolina to which I later returned. We passed several very interesting hill tribe villages inhabited by Red and Black Lahu people. We also met Karen and Shan people, all of whom were dressed in traditional garb. In appearance and lifestyle they rather resembled the highland Maya of Guatemala. In Soppong I discovered an absolutely exquisite lodge made entirely of bamboo and covered completely with orchids. The front porch featured hammocks and a wonderfully playful gibbon whose favorite pastime was cat torture. The place was run by a famous Thai chef who had married a famous French chef. There is no way I can adequately describe the food, which came with accommodation for a big $3 or so. Every evening there was a multi course feast requiring hours to eat. It was the very best food I have ever eaten at any price anywhere in the world. I was resolved to visit the big dolina so the next day I returned to the trail, then followed a small stream down into the thick jungle. It was the only place I had yet seen that had not been ravaged by slash and burn opium poppy cultivation by the hill tribes. Northern Thailand may seem verdant and natural to the uninformed observer, but in reality the hills are crawling with people desperate to scratch out a living. (This is in great contrast to the virgin rainforest of Khao Sok in southern Thailand where the recent tragedy occurred) Nevertheless, in the vast dolina the jungle was still intact. I was very pleased to find another cave racer, and especially a yellow tortoise, Indotestudo elongata. this was proof the place was virgin, for otherwise the poor tortoise would have been eaten! The terrain near the stream was extremely rugged, and the boulders so slippery and tangled with rattan that I retreated uphill into the more open groves of giant bamboo. In doing so I missed the cave, but didn't realize it until I went back downhill to discover the stream had disappeared. The day was growing late, and I had miles to go, so I continued up and out of the dolina and around the mountain. There I discovered another dolina completely hidden in the jungle, but this one had been cleared and cultivated. Standing guard was the most amazing scarecrow I have ever seen. A bamboo pole at least fifty feel tall had been jammed into a rock crevice in a cliff overlooking the clearing. From its end dangled a life sized human effigy complete with face, hands, feet, hat, and clothing. This fearsome creature was holding a cocked crossbow with poisoned arrow as it danced around in the wind at the end of the pole. I can only suppose that it was actually a scaremonkey, not a scarecrow. One thing is certain, it was really scary! Oddly enough, it was not an opium field. The proprietor was growing corn and pumpkins. He had a corncrib/shed which I entered with some trepidation, knowing I would not be welcome if discovered. Inside was a rat trap of the homemade haveaheart variety (you wouldn't want to spoil a perfectly good dinner rat!). Just because the devil makes me do it I decided to stuff the rat trap full of money. Imagine the inexplicable surprise! That evening a group of Euroweenies at the hotel invited me to join them for an evening of opium, so we walked to a hut on the far outskirts of the village of Soppong. I had tried small amounts of opium before and was not impressed as opiates are not my drug of choice. Here, real opium was available at $0.30/pipe. We sat there like zombies pulling on the pipe, but it didn't seem to be working, so I asked for more, then more again to the dismay of the proprietor who seemed to be concerned that I was overindulging. I was still not impressed until it was time to return to the hotel. That is when I discovered that I couldn't get up. I felt perfectly mentally alert but no amount of urging from higher cortical functions would induce my legs to move, so I began to crawl with some difficulty on my hands and knees toward the door of the hut. There I faced a formidable obstacle, the notched log that served as a set of stairs.The hut was almost ten feet off the ground so I had no choice but to wrap my arms around the log and slide down, lacerating myself in the process. Once on the ground I still faced the problem of standing up and walking a mile back to the hotel. After many failed efforts I managed to stand up and take a few staggering steps, then back down I went. This sequence went on for several hours until I was within sight of the hotel. It seemed that the ordeal was over, all I needed to do was take a whizz and go to bed. Alas, it was not to be. Despite many quarts of beer whizzing wasn't working. I could not understand what was wrong. Even under trying circumstances I can normally find my dick in the dark and take care of basic body functions, but now all that was impossible. I staggered back to bed, assuming everything would be OK in the morning. Wrong again! It was three days before I regained full control of my body functions! >From all this you can conclude that northern Thailand is a veritable paradise for caving, trekking, and ethnicity, but that opium is for morons! Sleazeweazel ps: anyone wishing to read the same story with annotated pix is welcome to email me.
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