KONG LOR

The night before i had bought a ticket to Kong Lor Cave without really knowing where the bus would drop me off. I just figured I would find out more when I got there... for starters, the "VIP" bus was full of locals and only two backpackers who did not speak any English. I never knew when I was allowed to get off to get food or if it was just a quick stop... as a result my lunch was a bag of chips.



The bus dumped me off in front of a huge rice field with beautiful mountains in the background, aka the middle of nowhere. I found myself on a dirt road but managed to find a guesthouse. I tried to ask for directions but they didn't speak any English and my sign language didn't help much. For all i could see, the whole town consisted of a dirt road with 2 hostels and maybe 10 houses. I had no idea of how to get out of there because there was no such thing as a bus station. Luckily I saw a white guy on the road and he spoke English! what a relief! him and his wife are doctors and they volunteered for a while but were currently traveling. Later in the evening we went to pretty much the only place you could get a drink at and I met a bunch more people, mainly because the whole restaurant consisted of one big table. There was a group of 7 who were doing "the loop" a 3 day motorbike trip around the region and a few more people who had arrived in a van. The next morning we all went to the cave together. We got into motorized canoes of 3 and ventured into the darkness. Khong Lor cave is one of the largest caves in South East Asia, it is a 7.5 km tunnel under the mountains. In the middle of the cave, there was a lit display of stalactites and stalagmites that made me feel as i was exploring another planet. The whole trip was really spooky, we even went through rapids in the darkness.

In the group of people i met, there ere 3 Canadian girls from Quebec, Claude, Freddie and Corrine and an Australian, Chris, who were all heading in the same direction as me. Their minivan driver had agreed to pick them up later that day so they let me join them even though the minivan was almost to full to take me. It dropped us of at an intersection an hour away, then we took a tuk tuk to Tha Khek, a night bus to Pakse, a second bus to 4000 Islands, hitched a ride to the ferry on a pick up truck and finally a boat to Don Det.

more pics at: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151700164550476.472164.503055475&type=3