After travelling to Vang
Vieng from Luang Probang with the best group of people, Will one of the lads
from Bristol had told us about some caves where you could explore without a
guide and where the water would come up to your chest. This sounded both scary
and exciting so we all agreed.
Will tried to barter
with a Tuk Tuk driver who didn’t speak any English. Asking the man to take us
to a cave which he couldn’t pronounce using his The Rough
Guide to Southeast Asia on a Budget.
He
was thrust a mobile phone and had to speak to the Tuk Tuk driver via the
“interpreter” over the phone. This was a brilliant sight. Will is a very well
mannered English gentlemen, who pronounces words very well and also uses far
too many of them in a situation like this.
Although after about
5-10 minutes of painful conversation, he had done it! We all piled into the Tuk
Tuk. Both Will and the driver seemed happy.
The Rough Guide
highlighted that we should have a map for the caves and that they were
available from the book shop in town. However Will seemed to think that we
could probably also purchase one from the “gas station” we stopped at.
“Excuse me, we would
like to know whether we could possibly purchase of copy of a map for the caves
please?”
One of the old guys
sat around playing cards laughing at us said “Toilet” and pointed to the loo.
“No, no I don’t need
the toilet thank you. I need a map for the caves. Do you sell them here? Can I
buy one please?”
Another reply came
“Toilet” again with
a firm point.
Hilarious. It was
reminiscent of the scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:
Indiana
Jones: The hell you will. He's got a two day head start on you,
which is more than he needs. Brody's got friends in every town and village from
here to the Sudan, he speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom, he'll
blend in, disappear, you'll never see him again. With any luck, he's got the
grail already.
[Cut to middle of fair in
the Middle
East
Marcus
Brody: Uhhh, does anyone here speak English?
Street Vendor: Water?
Marcus
Brody: No thank you, sir, no. Fish make love in it.
We headed off to the caves. The cave that
no-one could pronounce with no map in the wet season. Hurrah.
After veering around several cows taking a nap
in the middle of the road we turned down a very bumpy road signposted to the
caves that we could pronounce and not the ones we were looking for. But even
Will had admitted defeat by that point.
At the end of the road we came to a bridge,
also very reminiscent of something from an Indiana Jones film or other popular
80s action movies. We were like “are you frik’n serious?! Are the nine of us
and this tuk tuk going to make it across?”
Slowly we drove across and you could see
through the bridge to the river below. The bridge rattled so loudly. I’m not
sure what was older, the tuk tuk or the bridge.
We made it alive. Wow. At the end we came to a
sign post. One sign pointed left and read “AMAZING cave”. The other pointing
right read “nice big cave.”
Oh nice big cave it is then, thanks drive.
Don’t worry it’s not like the other one’s amazing, oh no wait, it is.
After driving along rice fields we finally arrived at a cave. It wasn’t the one
we wanted but hey! We were all handed a torch and headed on in.
It was amazing and so dark. Stalactites and
stalagmites were everywhere and water down in one section of the cave.
“Down here, it's our time.
It's our time down here. “Yes Leah had got it. We felt like the Goonies.
It was a real 80’s moving kinda day! We all turned our torches off at one point
and realise dhow dark it actually was. And then of course we finished the visit
of by trying to get Will to climb into a really small hole that he couldn’t fit
in, which he tried of course.
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