The Caves of Mae Hong Son and the Crazy Animals Within

I am sure you have been wondering, did Bill and Katie make it to the famous Cave Lodge in Mae Hong Son Province of North Thailand? Yes, we did but let us tell you it was not easy. Our original plan was to take a Grab from our Chiang Dao AirBnb to the lodge, an easy peasy 4-hour drive in an air-conditioned car. 24 hrs ahead of time, we booked the grab for 11am. At 11:30am we received notification that it was cancelled. We found ourselves stuck outside of the house after checking out, trying to figure out what the heck we should do: either find a way to the Cave Lodge or just go back to Chiang Mai and cut our losses. After exhausting options in Chiang Dao, we knew the only option was to return to Chiang Mai. So, we called up a taxi to get us to the Chiang Dao bus station where we waited for our 3-hour bus ride to Chiang Mai on a fan-only bus in the middle of the day (thank goodness it was the winter, so the temperature was only  about 90 degrees). We hopped on the bus and headed to Chiang Mai where we were hoping to catch a Grab or bus to Soppong, a town near the lodge. We arrived in Chiang Mai and found there we no busses to where we needed to go. Luckily, we kept trying the Grab and someone finally accepted our request of a 4-hour drive to the lodge, the only catch is when they arrived, they said they could not do it for the price that was stated on the app. Instead of 1800 baht ($60 dollars), he wanted 4000. At this point we were tired and ready to call it quits as the price he was asking for was too high for our budget. We thanked him for the offer and sat back at the bus station to explore our next options. After a few minutes, the man came back out of his car with a much better offer, 2800 baht. Still far more than we were expecting but the possibility of seeing this rare fish was too exciting, we looked at each other and with a quick nod, we were in the car headed to Pang Mahpa. The drive was quite a bit longer and windier than expected. The road weaved through tall mountains and was frequently only a single lane as the other lane had fallen down a cliff. Eventually, Billy had to sit in the front seat to prevent car sickness, but the welcome to the lodge was very nice and we were just happy to finally be there.

The Cave Lodge was constructed in the 70s as a research station and has slowly grown with a restaurant, campfire, and a few huts constructed of bamboo. After years of visitors and tourism in the area, it is now a finely established open draft restaurant with more than 20 huts made of bamboo or wood including a private bathroom. After our first afternoon, we ended up lengthening our stay to about a week, staying in three different huts. The first made of beautiful brown, red wood, the second made of bamboo, and the third a mixture of cement foundation and wood ceiling. Even though Katie allergies were going crazy in the first hut, she still says it was her favorite.

Our first day was spent exploring the area near the lodge with a crazy, energetic village dog following us all the way to the nearby cave, Nam Lod Cave. We wanted to see the infamous Pacific Swifts who nest in the cave pour out at sunrise and fly back into the cave at sunset, while the bats come out to feast on mosquitos. A bit after sunrise the swifts were still exiting the cave and we noticed a large aggregation of fish below the cave entrance, as like many caves in Thailand there is a river flowing through the cave from one end to the other.This same day around sunset, we hiked to the cave exit up and over the small mountain to see the other side and then headed back over to the entrance to see the swift enter the cave and bats exit. The day finished with an amazing meal at the Cave Lodge restaurant and chatting with some expert cavers, who convinced us to join them on their guided cave tour to Tham Nam Lang. So, with our next day planned from 9am to 7:30 pm, we packed up and snuggled into bed for a cold night.

The jumbo Tham Nam Lang Cave. The largest cave in Thailand by volume. Note our group in the bottom left of the image.

The following morning we woke up early to get some breakfast before our big day trekking through the cave. This adventure consisted of an hour-long drive, an hour hike up a mountain, trekking through cave mudflats, fast flowing rivers, and towering boulders in the cave. After a bumpy drive and steep hike we arrived at the gaping mouth of the cave - nearly 200 feet tall. We headed halfway down the entrance to a mud slope, where we used a rope tied to a bamboo stick anchored into the mudflat, to climb down the steep mud cliff. From there we climbed over guano covered boulders and rock faces, through a gushing river, all the while underneath a now 300-foot-tall ceiling. The grand cave formations in this cave were few and far between but they were well worth it as they are some of the most magnificent natural phenomena’s we have ever seen. The most massive sparkling flowstones and limestone waterfalls waited for us at our turnaround point of the cave, at about 6 hours in. And of course, along our hike we saw some cave critters, including horseshoe nose bats, cave isopods, cave shrimp, cave spiders, cave crickets, and cave millipedes. All in all, the day was amazing but one of the most exhausting we have ever had. The total trip length of time was 12 hours!

One of the mysterious cave shrimps (Macrobrachium sp.) from the cave. It was neat to see all different levels of cave adaptiveness. Some had eyes, some had none; some had pigment, others, some.

Later this night, we ran into some travelers at the cave lodge restaurant and were convinced to go on another cave tour the very next day. This was the very cave (we dare not speak its name) we came to the cave lodge to see, for it has one of the rarest, most fascinating animals to grace evolutionary science. The Waterfall Climbing Cave Angelfish (Cryptotora thamicola). This is one of the most specialized animals in the world. It is only found in a handful of caves and spends its entire life in complete darkness. Within these caves, it can only be found on fast flowing subterranean waterfalls. Despite this insane niche, it is perfectly adapted. They have no eyes and no pigment (why waste the energy?). And large fins with tiny hooks that allow them to hook on to the waterfalls rocks. They have a specialized pelvis which allows them to walk just like a salamander. This type of pelvis was paramount for the evolutionary jump from fishes to terrestrial vertebrates and so this fish is commonly used to study the evolution of walking.

We started another early day and headed to the cave on an hour drive and hike with our new friends, Peder from Norway and Glenn from Germany, both on a similar adventure as ours. The hike to the cave brought us through farmland and jungle on a trail that was steeply downhill, loose gravel, quite hard on the knees. Bill, with his 40lbs of camera gear, was already dreading the walk back. Suddenly the guides said “we are here”. We looked around and laughed, thinking they were joking. There was nothing but a cliff face and some large boulders. But, after leading us behind some big rocks, they pointed out an opening that was only about a meter high - very different from the previous cave. We threw on our helmets and headlamps and squeezed through the cracks of the entrance, climbing down to the floor. This cave also had a river flowing through it but at a much slower pace than the previous cave. Although this cave was a bit smaller and had a lower ceiling at just about 60 meters (180 feet), it was covered in glittering stalactites and stalagmite formations peppered with white and gold specks. Some of the formations had some funny names including the infamous Holy Stick stalagmite (reminiscent of Gandalf’s staff), a giant sparkle orange flowstone called The Pumpkin, and a stalactite called The Flower made up of rock drapery (also called cave bacon). This cave involved a lot less climbing of boulders, more deep swimming in the river, and cleaner rocks lacking the bat guano (thank god!). All the while observing these fascinating rock structures, we were looking for the secretive Cave Angelfish. We spent a total of 7 hours in the cave looking for a glimpse of the fish but had no luck. We were just reaching the exit when Bill climbed up and around a flowstone for one last search.

The guide and Bill looked in every nook and cranny with no luck. In defeat, they sat ontop of the flowstone and discussed other options when a tiny white shine caught Bill’s eye. “FOUND ONE!”

The Waterfall Climbing Cave Angel Fish photographing… well… climbing a waterfall. These are a truly troglomorphic species (cave adapted) they have no eyes, no pigment, and spend their entire lives in the darkness of caves.

And there it sat. On a small waterfall, maybe 5 inches across was the tiny ~1inch long fish we were looking for.  A little beacon of evolutionary extraordinaire, in all its pink and white glory, climbing the rushing waterfall. At this point Bill had talked about how amazing this creature was to the others in the group that his excitement for it was so infectious everyone else was equally ecstatic. Bill rushed to get his camera ready for a photoshoot, while everyone else held lights and helped him in every way to get the perfect shot (a job Katie usually would help with but was happy to let others take the reins for the moment.) We spent a couple hours photographing and observing this fish climb the waterfall, and our guide Gai even spotted a second one before leaving. We all were thinking what an amazing day and then just as we were leaving the entrance of the cave, we see a Thai Beauty Rat Snake hanging down from the ceiling, disguising itself as a stalactite to catch bats for dinner. And what does Bill do of course, he catches it and shows just how gentle these animals can be. He even got some of the others scared of it to hold it. Now, officially, this day was LEGEN- wait for it- DARY! LEGENDARY! The sun was setting by the time we were hiking back to the car, although exhausted we were comforted by the cool wind and sun setting over the limestone mountains. Back at the lodge, we shared what we found with other cave experts, and they were just as excited as we were! The best way to end this day was with a cold beer and delicious, warm food.

The following day we went back to the cave by ourselves (safely of course!), found the formation where we saw the fish, and spent a few hours filming. It was just Bill and Katie this time, as they lit up the waterfall and ceiling with powerful lights for the best photos. Many times you have to worry about lights bothering animals, but those worries aren’t applicable when the subject has no eyes.

On our last day of staying at the Cave Lodge and way past our budget, we decided to head to the Myanmar border, as we had heard a part of a Thailand mountain road dipped its toe past the border from our fellow travelers at the lodge. Now does this technically mean we went into Myanmar, we think so! We hopped on the bike for long 40-minute drive to the border, climbing up and down mountains and passing checkpoints along the way. We get to the curve of the road that dips into Myanmar, take a quick picture, and get out of there. Unfortunately, as we were heading back down the mountain from the spot, there was a few loose gravel turns and as we were slowing down our front brake locked the wheel and the bike flew sideways out from underneath us, throwing us from the bike onto the gravel. Luckily, we were relatively okay, as we were going a slow and we landed on gravel instead of pavement. We got away with some decent scrapes and bruises, although Bill was beat up a bit more than Katie as he took the brunt of the fall. After doing an assessment of damage to our bodies and the bike, we decided to walk the bike down past the other loose gravel turns and drove the rest of the way back, albeit very slowly and safely. That night we decided, we were due for a good rum and coke at the lodge.

Proof that we dipped our toes into Myanmar. The views from here were breathtaking.