2011-11-17
Nong Khiaw is set along a river and amongst towering mountains. A peaceful place to hangout, I met a guy who'd been there a week and was planning to stay much longer. Sam and I decided to hike to a nearby cave and afterwards, as we were walking away, a local guy with a knife told us that there was another cave 300 meters away that was much nicer. At first, I was a bit wary since he was carrying a knife and I hadn't read about any other caves, but I decided he was genuine and sure enough, we found the second cave a few minutes later and what a cave it was. The narrow passages went on for quite a distance and required climbing straight up in one spot. We had a great time exploring and luckily my dodgy flashlight didn't give out. The cave had a few bats and was filled with spiders. We met a girl in Thailand who had been bitten by a spider in Laos and ended up losing a chunk out of her leg, so we did our best to give the spiders a wide berth.