Journey to the Center of the Earth

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  Vang Vieng, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Monday, January 29, 2007

I'm still a 6-year-old boy at heart.  I love little green army men and the Thundercats, and I'm terrified of the dark and the clergy.  But despite my fears we headed out to a cave about 7 kilometers from town.  The hike out was beautiful and followed a path that led us along the side of the mountains we had been staring at for the last few days.  I wasn't all that interested in seeing the cave.  I've been caving elsewhere and enjoyed most of it.  But I like it to have more going on than simply stepping into a hole in the ground.  I realize that many cave formations are exotic and other worldly, but I've been to Carlsbad Caverns and the place is amazing.  For sheer aesthetic appeal, I doubt many places will rival that view.  So in Belize I went tubing in some caves.  The combo of the water (my other major fear) made that exhilarating.  And the cave had some Mayan artifacts scattered throughout which added to the experience.  I've also done the whole crawling through such a tiny space in the rocks that I was sure I would die (I'm claustrophobic too.  I'm pretty much a sissy), then crawling along on my stomach taking short, panicked breaths, and finally emerging, as if from a jagged birth canal, into a magnificent cavern.  I've enjoyed all of it, but I don't feel like it's something I want to continue doing.  Once is enough.  But Lindsey wanted to go and we had to get away from the Friends DVDs for a while. 
 
There are probably a dozen caves around Vang Vieng that are open to the public, and this was one of the lesser visited sites.  There were a handful of people sitting around when we arrived.  They were all on their way out and they didn't seem very impressed with the experience.  Although one guy did say that the personal guide (who was required) was nice to have since there were large holes on the path that opened up to unending blackness.  I was pumped.  We paid for our guide and began to set out.  But then another couple approached and he invited them to join us.  Unfortunately the old man who would be guiding us on the journey only had two extra lights, which consisted of old headlamps hooked up to motorcycle batteries.  So instead of Lindsey and I both having one, there was only one per couple.  This made the going a little rough.  The light wasn't powerful enough to illuminate much of the path and one of us was always stumbling along blindly.  The guide was nice enough to point out which jagged stalactites might send my brains puddling onto the floor of the cave, as well as the giant holes the guy had mentioned before we entered.  Our guide was clearly not a geologist as he only pointed out rocks formation that looked like phalluses and then proceeded to giggle like a toothless little girl.
 
After about 30 minutes of hiking into the cave, our guide informed us, with no English and a great deal of gesticulating, that he would be accompanying the other couple on to the lagoon in the cave and they we should head back.  I told him, with no Lao and a great deal of head shaking, that this was unacceptable.  The problem was this:  We had only paid for the regular cave tour and the other couple (French Canadians whom I had learned to loathe in a very brief time) had paid twice as much because they were going all the way to a lagoon in the cave, which was another hour hike.  Apparently the guy was trying to hustle us into paying for the extra journey that we didn't want to take.  It was also getting late and we had walked to the cave, and if we did the lagoon tour we would be hiking back to town in the dark.  This was an unfortunate turn of events and we had only moments to decide what to do because the guide was walking away.  As if on cue, our lone light began to flicker.  I yelled at the guide and he angrily switched lights with us and pointed back in the direction we had come, then disappeared farther into the mountain.  We had to make a quick decision.  Should we just follow them in?  The guy was clearly not taking us back out.  But in the few seconds we thought about it the three of them and their lights vanished.  We laughed at the ridiculousness of it all.  We put our cameras away so we could concentrate on making our way out and not plummeting to our deaths in one of the breaks in the floor or heading down the wrong path.  We hadn't seen any caves branching off from the one we had come in, but we hadn't been paying close attention either.  We didn't know he would ditch us once inside.  So we started making our way out precisely the way we had come in.
 
I was carrying the light and leading the way.  I was mildly uncomfortable with not having a guide, but we're both capable human beings.  Well, at least Lindsey is.  Because 2 minutes into our journey, as I approached one of the gaping holes that led into an underground abyss, I stumbled.  As I reached out instinctively to steady myself, my hands became tangled in the wires of our light, and the connections pulled free.  We were bathed in blackness.  It was a darkness I have never known.  I've turned off lights in a cave before.  It's dark.  But just the knowledge that I can turn it on as soon as I choose makes the darkness less complete.  We had no such luxury.  We were in trouble.
 
I told Lindsey to stop immediately, feel around her feet to make sure she was on solid ground, and to sit down and not move.  I knew I was still a couple of feet from the hole and I found a spot to sit down and work on reconnecting the battery.  I had watched the guide connect one of the lights, but only out of passing curiosity.  I hadn't studied the details of the procedure.  But I felt like I understood the gist of it.  I placed the light and battery firmly between my feet so they wouldn't go tumbling into the gloom.  With it this dark, even if it only moved a few feet it might be lost to me forever.    I immediately braced myself for a swell of panic, but none came.  And Lindsey was calm and collected and was only a few feet away so I was able to concentrate on the task at hand.  I first went over the inventory of items at our disposal.  Flash light?  Nope.  Headlamps?  They were at the hotel and out of batteries.  Lighter?  Nope.  I've got to start smoking.  But I did have a digital camera.  I gingerly retrieved it from my backpack and opened the flash.  When I press down the shutter half way it emits a small burst of yellow light for a second or two.  It was enough to see where everything was.  And even this bit of light served to comfort us a little.

I could see that only one of the two connections to the battery was still intact.  I began to work on the other one, mostly by feel.  I felt the wires connect, but nothing happened.  I thought even if I didn't get the light to work I could electrocute myself into unconsciousness.  But there was no light, no spark, no shock - just more darkness.
 
After a couple of minutes, it dawned on me that the LCD screen would provide much more consistent light.  It wasn't as bright, but the strobe light I was using wasn't working very well.  Lindsey made her way toward me and held the camera so that I could see what I was working on.  I had both wires connected, but nothing was happening.  We were both afraid that it couldn't be repaired.  We had tentatively called for help early on in the situation, but the echoes died quickly and no response could be heard. 
 
It's amazing how much one can think in a short period of time in the oppressive blackness in the bowels of the earth.  It seemed like an eternity.  But it wasn't.  After less than 10 minutes I had found a stray wire that I also connected to the battery, and light streamed from the lamp.  I was suddenly Lindsey's hero, despite the fact that she was never even upset with me.  She assured me that she would have never figured out how to put the light back together.  Fortunately, the set up was much like the car batteries the guys carry around in Mexico and allow you to pay them to electrocute you and your friends.  Is there anything you can't learn in Juarez?
 
We emerged from the cave, left the unreality of the fiasco behind us, and set out for Vang Vieng.  While the situation seemed frightening at the time, we knew we were never in any real trouble.  The guide and the other couple would have to return the way they came in and would find us whimpering in the darkness.  And as we exited there was another couple about to start a tour.  They too would have found us.  But it could have been a longer ordeal.  And we were happy to be out in the sun once again..

01 West of the River

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02 Abandoned Shack	03 Hut and Satellite TV	04 Lindsey and Bamboo	05 The Walk In
06 Woman on the Path	07 Man on the Path	08 Two of the Few Westerners We Saw	09 Spider Web Vortex
10 Spider	11 The Road In	12 Leaves	13 Bastard
14 Entrance	15 Cave Formations	16 Lindsey in the Cave	17 More Rock
18 Pall of Darkness	19 Working on the Light	20 No Panic in Her Eyes	21 Window of Light
22 Back Out into the World	23 The Exit	24 The Afternoon Sun	25 Leaving the Mountains
26 Back in Town by Dusk

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