After a nice breakfast at a cafe up the road we saddled up and said bye to Pai. Off we went twisting up to the top of the next mountain and down the other side, Soppong was only about an hours ride away. Our map reading took a bit of a turn for the worst here and we ended up over shooting our next destination by about 10km which took nearly half an hour to back-track due to the sharp twists and turns. Cave lodge was built in the early 80's originally designed for an australian team to map the comlexed caving sytems and local culture and hill tribes. John Spies, the founder, has nearly 30 years of knowledge and experience throughout the region. He now shares this through trekking, caving and kayaking activities.

We arrived at mid-day and were greeted by Johns wife who immediately showed us the accomodation, sorted our lunch and gave us some activities to consider for the afternoon. We set ourselves up in a treehouse-type cabin and got ready for an afternoon of kayaking and cave tours . . .we didn't realise at the time but we actually got to paddle straight through a massive cave which included a stop off for exploration and photo's!

The 1st cave, 'Cave Lod' was like something off the 'Alien' or 'Descent' film set and a little creepy but interesting all the same (see photo's). The worst thing about the cave was the stench of bat and bird sh*t as it was home to hundreds and thousands of bats and swifts!

Next we were of to 'Hair Cave' named after the hair/spaghetti-like stalactites all over the ceiling. This was Sinead's first taste of actual caving . . .little did we know that we were going to be climbing down a small dark hole into the cavernous underground in our swimming gear and flip flops, obviously this was not ideal for caving but we clambered down all the same! Thank god for our guide and head torches!

After walking a windy trail back to our boats - freshly brushed by a bunch of monks in their orange toga's (they lived behind a random wooden door into the mountainside) we hopped in and carried on down river!

The next challenge consisted of a multitude of white-water rapids and even 2 waterfalls where we both got drenched - the guides (Ong and Guy) found this extremely amusing :)

3 hours later we were back in our room for a freezing cold shower - after being told we'd have warm water . . . . .oh I forgot to mention the giant-ant infestation in our toilet but we managed to clear it after about 12 flushes, it was mingin'!

Off we went to the communal area for a well deserved beer and some lovely home-cooked Thai food. We got sitting with a few other travellers here, an Aussie bloke, Czech bloke, French girl and Belgique couple. It was a good laugh and we all had a hold of Adrian the Aussie's new found pet, a huge dung-beetle - it was harmless and just seemed like a wind-up toy :)

Off we went to bed where we had a guard dog posted at our front door; he seemed to take a shine to us (or our hut!).

Ciao for now, up early again for ride out day 3!

S&M