We spent the afternoon at the river at the bottom of John and Nang's plot of land in Soppong. Elliot used to be a tour guide in the area and had come to visit with his wife Lisa and their daughter Eden.... read more

On Sunday we went to Bangkok, arriving at 6am on Monday. Here is a list of the things we did: - Stopped off in Chiang Mai, had a pedicure, bumped into 1 person who had stayed at Cave Lodge. - walked around Lumphini Park in Bangkok, saw big reptiles, met some men gambling. - dinner with Marcus and Julie - dancing on Khao San Road, bumped into 2 people who had stayed at Cave Lodge. - shopping in China Town with Marcus, Julie, Dave and Nate - Bangkok Arts and Cultural Centre - Golden Mountain - lots of coffee shops - got royally ripped off on our coach journey to Chiang Mai - Pai hot springs :-) - strolled around Pai - Reggae festival, bumped into 3 people who had stayed at Cave Lodge, and 1 ... read more

Somehow we ended up walking 13km to this village just 3 km away. We went up and over the hill between, walked the wrong way along the ridge, found some pink ribbons used as markers for the Thailand Ultramarathon in October and trustingly followed them until realising that we didn't want to be going that route! Made it to Muang Paem, saw Karen women weaving, bought a blanket each, had a long lunch while playing with the baby, then returned along the river. Just as we started to get lost a monk appeared and was going to Tham Lod so we followed him. He disappeared, but came to our rescue a couple of other wrong turns along the route. Maybe this was some good Karma we got from washing the Cave Lodge shrine...... read more

Yum, dinner!... read more

Another day, another cave. We joined a huge group (12 guests and 3 guides) to go to a very newly explored cave. In John's book there is a story about when they first found the cave and thought there was a bear living in the entrance. No bears this time. 4km of stream until a rock fall has blocked the path, but this makes for a bunch of fun climbing and scrambling up to ledges and to try and find chambers. So here is what I learnt from this trip - cave stream walking is definitely an art form; there is no set of rules to learn in order to get it right and not split your calf open! The stream is half ankle high, half swimming. The swimming parts are fine because you can go ... read more