Digging deep into big holes in the ground
Caves. What is it about caves? As I have explained in some other stories, every media trip on which I go seems to feature museums at the top of the itinerary. Why is that? It’s on the obligatory bucket list, I suppose. People who have never been to the museum in their own home town in their entire lives immediately make a bee line to a museum in wherever town they are visiting. As far as my extensive list of media trips are concerned, visiting caves seem to be obligation number two. If there is a big hole in the ground within fifty miles, travel writers on press trips will be required to go visit it and write about the experience. I don’t really have claustrophobia, but there are other places I would rather visit, like those destinations where you can actually see something. Caves tend to be rather dark at the best of times.
In regards to phobias, I have explained elsewhere I have a strategy that encourages me to exploit my fears and phobias on my various trips around the world for the satisfaction and edification of my readers. If I am afraid of a particular experience or adventure, then I deliberately go experience it. Fear of falling is high on my list, so I have “enjoyed” various adventures like ziplining that have allowed me to scare the snot of myself for your personal amusement. There are many other fears I have not yet experienced or written about, but as the saying goes “the day is still young.”
For instance, I have a fear of drowning. Many people do. Drowning is bad for your health. I don’t like being shot at either. There was that time in the civil war in Nepal where our trekking party ambled past an army platoon blasting away at a target in front of which we had to pass, and it’s never very amusing walking in front of a group of poorly educated young teeth armed to the teeth with cheap weapons and perhaps an envy of rich foreign tourists.
With all these fears you must think me some sort of Nancy boy, but to add to the list I also have an aversion to very large or poisonous snakes that bite people, and malarial zones with lots of insects buzzing through the holes in the cheap mosquito nets over the cheap beds in the cheap hotel room that you rented and were last patched in 1956. But enough about fear and phobias, let’s talk about those dark holes in the ground known as caves.
Barbados is a delightful little island in the southern Caribbean I have visited several times, an island with a great many delightful tourist attractions. The island is surrounded by sandy beaches and I discovered there are enough interesting activities like swimming with sea turtles that I would enjoy traveling there every year. However, the number one tourist attraction in Barbados is Harrison Caves. Visitors arrive at the capital of Bridgetown imprisoned in a cruise ship, where they debark to be enclosed in a packed shuttle bus, where they venture forth to the caves en masse to descend into a black hole. The hole is so dark you can’t see anything other than the usual stalagmites and stalactites, but I confess the air temperature certainly is refreshing compared to what’s outside. If you have claustrophobia I can’t recommend Harrison’s, but otherwise it’s up to you. Don’t forget to try a little shopping in Bridgetown on the way back to the ship. In the Cheapside Market where the locals shop you can eat some breadfruit fries to tell to your fellow prisoners aboard the cruise ship who will think you are daft.
Still in the Caribbean, should you find yourself in Puerto Rico with some time on your hands you could pop over to the Camuy caves, tucked into the karst region of the north coast. This is the third largest underground cave system in the world, and the underground Rio Camuy runs through it. The main part of the cavern is massive, with a ceiling over 10 stories high. I must confess I didn’t explore it all. Like most media trips, I only managed to get my shoes wet, so to speak. There were strong hints of sandy beaches and seafood and parasailing awaiting elsewhere on the itinerary so I got distracted, and then of course there was that damned hurricane to deal with.
Easily the most dramatic cave I have ever visited was located just a few klicks east of the ultra-exclusive Bad Ragaz Spa Resort in Switzerland, where if your wallet is dragging you down you can lighten it up by booking a suite in the hotel then walking a few miles up a mountain road to find the source of the thermal water for which the spa is world famous. Europe’s most abundant thermal source originates in the nearby Tamina Gorge, discovered in the early Middle Ages (1242) by hunters chasing a deer. The Tamina is the source of the spa’s healing thermal water, which flows at a delightful 36.5°C (the same as body temperature) down a pipe to the resort.
People who go to spas such as Bad Ragaz do so to wallow in the water and supposedly feel better afterwards. Since I cannot afford luxurious spas on my personal zero budget, I have devised a simpler and cheaper option to make myself feel better, which is known as “exercise.” I don’t know if anyone from the Bad Ragaz spa, either staff or guest, has ever walked up the mountain to the source of the water, but it’s a lovely hike up the gorge following a river with waterfalls and an incredible reward at the end of the journey. Back in the year 1240 locals were afraid of the gorge because steam emanated from it and the local monks informed the great unwashed to stay away because the steam was likely from the nostrils of a dragon, but I think they just wanted to keep the hot water for themselves to cleanse their sins.
These days there is a modest hotel at Tamina Gorge, empty of guests when I was there, and a gate where you insert a few coins in a box, and then you follow a wooden boardwalk deep into the ravine. To say the Gorge is eerie would not be the truth; it is downright scary. The grotto weeps from high above, dripping constantly on your head. It is cold and gets colder as you proceed up the grotto. Steam can be seen wafting in the distance like the proverbial entrance to Hell, which was actually how the cave was regarded in the old days. The steam is not hot enough to warm the air in the grotto, and it is quite dark, but knowing that it is a tourist attraction is enough to assure the nervous hiker and eventually the source of the boiling steam is discovered, hidden away by a sheet of plexiglass to stop the ignorant from jumping in.
Tamina may rate with Dracula’s castle as one of the scariest tourist destinations in the world. Then it’s all downhill back to the resort along the same dusty road, with the annoyance of seeing the local bus crawling up the hill that you could have taken if anyone at the resort had told you about it, which is info I wouldn’t share with you because the whole point of a hike is to get some exercise so you can stuff your face at dinner.
The mother of all caves is found in the Guilin District of southern China. Since it’s a communist country, I don’t know if Guilin is a state, province, district, or what, but it is a big region and definitely a tourist attraction. The small city of Yangshuo is the centre of attention, a major stop on the Lonely Planet backpack circuit for various reasons. You can take a long slow cruise down the Lijiang River from the city of Guilin, and river rafting around Yangshuo is excellent (not the whitewater version, but bamboo floats), and there are bicycles to rent to explore the gorgeous countryside which is comprised of very weird looking mushroom shaped mountains. The entire region is karst topography, porous limestone riddled with underground caves. I don’t know if the caves are the top tourist attraction in Guilin or not, but there sure are an awful lot of them.
The Reed Flute Cave is the most famous. Also known as “the Palace of Natural Arts” it is a national landmark and a major tourist attraction. One of the reasons it is famous is because of its multicolored lighting. The cave is over 180 million years old but the lighting is fairly new. Evidently, there are more than 70 ancient inscriptions written on the cave’s rock in ink, which can be dated back as far as 792 AD in the Tang Dynasty. I say “evidently” because I didn’t count them all. In fact, I was so dazzled by the lighting that I never looked for any transcriptions.
The cave system was rediscovered in the 1940s by a group of refugees fleeing Japanese troops. The lighting is itself a work of art and well worth checking out just for the hallucinatory effect it has on the brain without having to do any serious drugs. In fact, the entire cave looks like a stage set from the Alien movie series. There are walkways with railings on which to grab, steps and corridors, viewing platforms, and I am told there may be a pond in there somewhere as well.
Apparently there are other caves to visit in the Guilin region. For instance, I was told about the Crown Cave (or Guanyan Cave), part of an underground river which is connected with the above ground Li River. The cave is inside a hill which is hollowed out and consists of three parts. The top two are dried karst caves with fantastic stalactites and stalagmites but the bottom is a giant subterranean river that connects to the Li. Evidently you can take a boat tour inside the cave, and I am told you can also take a small train and there is a sightseeing roller coaster to visit. Let me know if you go. Send me a postcard.
Should you be excited and want to dart off to Guilin right away, let me share some important advance information. Guilin is located north of Hong Kong, which in summer is the world’s largest outdoor sauna bath. Guilin can be very hot and humid too. Don’t go in summer unless you want to lose weight. The best aspect of the Guilin caves is that they are very cool, if you catch my drift. Then you step out of the hallucinatory atmosphere and suddenly its real life again and you wish your modest boutique hotel in Yangshuo had better air conditioning.
Given that the Guilin district is one of the biggest tourist attractions in China, it attracts its fair share of touts and scams. Not that the tiny Hill Tribes people who come here to pose for photos with great hairy foreigners and sell souvenir trinkets are phony, but you have to watch out for the guy with the monkeys. I am well aware that using monkeys as a tourist trap photo opp is animal abuse, because the monkeys have chains tied to them to stop them from running off to Yangshuo and pick pocketing the backpackers, but they are so darned cute you can’t help but wander over to them and say hello. Whereupon they go into their little well-worn act of climbing up on you, giving you a kiss, whispering into your ear that if you don’t pay for a picture they will starve to death, and before you know it you have become just another patsy and been relieved of a few yuan in the shameful process.
Given that a man of my reputation as a travel writer would rather be arrested for shoplifting than be seen dead posing for a Monkey Shot, I am only telling you this information so you don’t fall victim to the same fate. In return for this warning, I ask a favour that you don’t tell anyone I told you this. Spread the word about the caves, but don’t ever mention the poor monkeys. Whatever you do, don’t get your monkey picture taken, even as a joke. Your friends, fans and followers will give you grief for years.