Limestone Adventures:
The Making of an Eco-Tour

by Nick Ascot

Everyday for years now I have looked longingly at the imposing limestone mountains of Laos opposite my office, just across the Mekong River. I had even seen some of the limestone up close, and traveled through parts of it on frequent trips to Vietnam with clients. I call this the "barely beaten track". Those past trips to Vietnam took me along a difficult winding mountain road (Route 8), under a high waterfall dissolving into air, and past fields of limestone needles.

Crossing the Mekong to Laos

Despite elements of the Lao government doing their best to rip as many trees off the land as possible, the fact remains that less than half the country has even been surveyed! But it was only recently when I began to understand just how fantastic the area really is, and what it meant to get off the aforementioned "barely-beaten" track.

Officially the area is known as a National Biodiversity Conservation Area (NBCA). However, until last year when I met Robin (one of our group who works in the NBCA), I could never even find out anything about the area! Requests for info from locals are usually met with shaking heads and responses like "Ya caint get there from here," and "well, my daddy said he had been in there once, but…"

Why Make this Eco-Adventure?
My motive for mounting this survey trip into the National Biodiversity Conservation Area was this: here we run a tour company right next to some of the world's most impressive biodiversity areas, but nobody seems to know anything about it! I figure a great trip could be made out of it. And after several years in the tourism industry watching trends locally and internationally, I believe that this virgin territory will shortly be in hot demand.

Seeing how unplanned and unregulated tourism has destroyed many of Thailand's loveliest spots, my interests is to "get in on the ground floor" as it were, both for the sake of my business, but also to do my part to encourage sustainable tourism in this beautiful area so close to our home.

Well, enough preaching for now.

The Trip - Up to the Nam Teun River
Friday morning my friend and sometime partner Simon, who also runs an Adventure / Eco-tour company in South Thailand, met me at my office, we gathered our supplies and headed to the customs/immigration post on the river. Our Lao partner met us on arrival and we went to collect the rest of our survey team.

Robin, a forest conservation expert from New Zealand and advisor to the NBCA administration was one of our guides. Robin knows far more about the area than any of the local Lao people. Funny, considering he speaks only a few words of Lao. Sharon & John who work for the World Wildlife Federation also joined us. Khamsone our other guide, is the #2 guy in the provincial tourism administration, but more importantly for our group, he is an ardent spelunker - loves climbing around caves - something we expect to visit on our trip!

We loaded the 4-wheel drive after a quick lunch and headed out of town. Simon & I sat in the open back so as to get the best view. Within the hour we began driving up the limestone. The road followed the low points and valleys until the only way to go was up. The higher we went, the better the view became.

Karst Formation in Central Laos

We must have stopped to take photos 8 times in a couple of hours! Some spots afforded views down onto wave-like lines of jagged limestone peaks. At one point above us several hundred meters we could see a waterfall. It fell straight into nothing and the water became a cloud of mist. The whole scene reminded me of a Disney film I saw as a kid called Fantasia. It depicted a land full of fantastical & weird mountains, waterfalls & creatures. This was the closest to it I ever saw! We continued up the mountains toward the Vietnamese border, occasionally passing local hilltribe folk hunting birds, walking or transporting the odd pig.

Previous trips to VN over this road had often been slow going due to the many log trucks bringing their cargo to VN. The disheartening sight of dozens of 5-6 foot diameter logs going to Vietnam made me wonder, what can the NBCA be like? Is it really is being conserved? We can see where some of the logging has been happening, but once you are off the road, you are in full-on jungle.

The Nam Teun River Bridge & the War
We drove to a village with a bridge, which straddles the Nam Teun River. We always stop at this unusual town when crossing to Vietnam and I wanted our group to see a most unusual and interesting feature of this town: all the boats here are made of 30-40 year old discarded US Air Force aluminum. I am reasonably certain that they are reserve fuel tanks from B-53 Bombers. This area was not part of the Ho Chi Mihn Trail through Laos - which is directly South about 150km - so did not get bombed much by the US. However, this area, inaccessible by road until only a couple of years ago, was directly below the shortest air route from dangerous Vietnamese skies to safety for US pilots. US pilots with damaged aircraft often flew to the safety of the base in our town Nakorn Phanom, Thailand. Many planes apparently ditched loads of bombs and locals remember seeing planes go down at various times & places nearby.

Ride a Bomb Boat!

The charming Lao people I often thought must hold a grudge against somebody for being unwillingly ideologically sandwiched between the US and the Vietnamese during the war years. Their lovely people and country sustained so much damage. If, however, the Laos held a grudge, one would never know it here. As I passed the guard shack at the foot of the bridge, I noticed the rusting AK-47 rifle on the wall angled in exactly the same position as a few months earlier when I passed this spot with my Mama and some of her friends en route to Vietnam. I imagined for a moment that perhaps it had not been touched since then: the smiling friendly boys "guarding" the bridge seemed so juxtaposed to war and the terrible hardships the Laos endured.

The Teun Hin Boun Power Project - the "Jumping-Off" Point
After I took a swim in the river, we finished our soda pops at one of the tiny roadside stands surrounded by clamoring children and loaded up the truck to get to our accommodation for the night. We backtracked a few kilometers down the mountains to the surreally out-of-place Teun Hin Boun Power Project. This strange place merits a few words.

Located in a small valley surrounded by huge limestone mountains is a compound with some 30 California style bungalows, a helicopter pad, a small dam, a 6 hole golf course, and a crew of Italians and Laos. It was there where we stayed for the night.

The next morning the kitchen staff treated us to a fantastic breakfast of homemade bread, eggs, REAL cheese (!), cereal, juice, and more! Then we were off to the river.

The Nam Hin Boun River
We drove to the river's edge where we met the boat man Khamsone had arranged for us. One of Khamsone's colleagues then took the truck back by road. We got on board our 20ft boat, got comfortably settled, and began cruising downriver into the NBCA.

For hours we passed through huge limestone gorges and dense jungle. At one point we heard the whooping calls of Francois Langur Monkeys and switched off the motor and drifted with the river trying to see them. Swallow-like birds with long tails flew overhead and there were black yawning hanger-size cave entrances high on the walls of some of the limestone cliffs all around us.

Rendering of a Francois Langur

I have traveled in many countries and seen many beautiful places, but this ranks in the top two or three. Perhaps it is because this wonderful and untouched place is so close my home in Thailand that impressed me most.

Around lunch we stopped at a small village where Khamsone introduced us to the village headman, who in the hospitable Lao tradition took us into his house. His wife helped us situate our gear for that night. We relaxed for an hour and after snacking on breakfast leftovers, we left most of our gear with the headman, got in the boat and crossed the river to drive slowly up a small flooded tributary to the Nam Hin Boun River.

Once off the main river the trees and foliage were extremely thick. Next time I go up this section of river I will do it in a rowboat. Our captain and a boy from the village brought our big boat clumsily up through the tangled trees. I noticed that the water had turned an emerald green colour, as opposed to the brown muddy river we had just left. Parts of the jungle were so dense that only small shafts of light popped through. I could hear bird calls and I thought of Indiana Jones & Rambo.

Inside the Tham Heup Cave
We were suddenly in a clearing against a sheer mountain cliff face. And directly in front of us was a huge cave entrance. We all piled out of the boat and made our way over stones to the entrance. Spooky! I could hear water rushing as I looked into the cave: as large as a cathedral with walls I imagined looked like the inside of a giant's stomach. But suddenly I was puzzled. I asked Khamsone why there were 4 small boats tied off to rock some 100 ft into the cave. He explained.

The Watery Entrance to the Cave

This cave is actually a 3 kilometer-long tunnel he said. Since the land is so rocky, and rice is difficult to cultivate primarily because of the lack of flat fertile areas, the villagers from our village had discovered a hidden valley on the other side where they could plant!

Dorothy, we are not in Kansas anymore. Stranger and stranger. Imagine this: cross a strong flowing river, then paddle a kilometer up a tributary choked with jungle, then walk through a 3 kilometer long cave AND THAT IS JUST TO GET TO WORK! Now the villagers must go and work the rice! I have spent a season planting and harvesting rice. It is hard enough without the above obstacles. My respect for the villagers immediately shot up into a new order of magnitude.

At first we all began walking into the cave. But the water kept changing in depth, and the ground was sometimes hard sand, sometimes vegetable matter. The first several hundred feet were no problem: huge shafts of light bounced in from somewhere high in the cave. A bit farther and it was pitch black ahead. This discouraged several of our party who decided to return to wait out front. Khamsone, Robin, John, Simon and myself were left now.

I suddenly realized I had my small daypack with my camera and - you gotta wonder how anyone would be so dumb - a mobile telephone. I did my best to wrap my pack full of silly equipment in my plastic rain poncho. I really missed my Keds sneakers at this point. Rushing water has a way of grabbing and ripping off flip flops (Lao hiking boots).

My slow going meant that Simon & I found ourselves far behind the other three in very short order (who had head-mounted flashlights and goretex jackets etc etc). We consulted each other and laden with silly stuff or not, decided to push on ahead.

The cave narrowed and widened and curved and rose. Gripping Simon's shoulder while he held our one flashlight, we sometimes walked and sometimes waded chest deep through the water. I was holding my little pack above my head to try and keep things dry. Several times I was chest deep and could feel water almost hot at one level and cold water at another, gurgling and rushing water sounds loud and all around us.

At one point we turned of the light and just listened. The cave felt like a labyrinth, even though in my rational mind I knew I could get out by just turning around. The others were far ahead now and we could not hear their voices or see their lights. Simon and I moved ahead till the cave made a dramatic curve. Here we decided the discretion was the better part of valor, and turned around. The trip out was probably just as long but it felt much faster. We stayed pretty much to our original path.

The Valley on the Other Side of the Cave

We passed a group of villagers who obviously new the cave well, they were traveling very fast. We exchanged greetings and continued our respective ways.

Once out in front of the cave again I noticed my fingers had turned all froggy and wrinkled. Soaked to the bone and cold in the 90 degree steaming jungle! Next time I will bring proper shoes and a better jacket like the others. I'll also bring a couple of good waterproof lights.

How the other 3 guys got through and back in such short order I do not know. They waited a few minutes on the other side and then returned. They got out about 20 minutes after us. Very good time.

We paddled our oversized boat back down the small river and across the Hin Boun River to the village. Everybody was bone tired and ready to relax.

Night in the Village
Lao village food is very simple. There is virtually no commerce here, and food is pretty much limited to what folks grow at home, catch in the river, or animals kept around the house like chickens. The headman's wife cooked a chicken for us, and dinner consisted loads of sticky rice, a tough & stringy chicken, and peppered fish sauce. Simple but very delicious after the days exertions.

Our group must truly have been a novelty for the villagers: Simon who has lived for years as a Muslim in South Thailand did not speak Lao, but I would periodically noticed him chatting away with villagers having no problem whatsoever communicating. But for the other Lao folks and myself, his strong Southern Thai accent seemed hilarious! Robin, John, Sharon & Khamsone spent time looking over maps. I talked with the headman and played with dozens of knee-high kids: they hid behind each other and squealed with delight as I would looked or smiled at them! This seemed so different than Thailand. Or maybe it was more like the Thailand I first met 15 years ago.

During the day there were some 50 small children who gathered to see the big white people. At night there were 30 or so village men and a dozen ladies all there to eat, talk with, and watch us. The headman's wife very hospitably continued to pass around the moonshine rice whisky. I was very impressed by the hospitality shown us: something normally only done for visiting Big Shot Government Officials.

A Warm Greeting from the Kids of Na Kok

Lao village sleeping arrangements are usually on the floor with a thin straw mat. Once everyone was pleasantly plastered on rice booze, following local tradition Sharon went to stay with the ladies and girls, while the headman slept with the men on the raised balcony of the small house.

Looking for Francois Langur Monkeys
day on the River Everyone awoke by 0530hrs. By 0600hrs we were on board the boat heading some 20 minutes up river to a place in a limestone gorge known to be home to many of the Francois Langurs.

We wanted to see the Langurs, but apparently they did not want to see us! We were however treated to something I think must be an unusual occurrence in these parts.

The limestone walls here are mostly blackened with age. This means therefore that the rock is strong and does not normally fall off. But today we heard a loud rock fall lasting perhaps 10 full seconds. The loud cracking and banging I thought it might have been a huge tree falling, but the consensus of our group including Robin and the local boat men was that this was a rock fall. I believe this was an auspicious sign. Rock falls such as that occur only once in a very blue moon I imagine, and we just happened to be there at the right time!

We drifted for awhile, listening for the distinctive Langur's call and watching exotic birds before re-starting the engine and heading back for a breakfast of sticky rice, canned sardines and French bread at the headman's house.

After saying our goodbyes and leaving some money for the village, we picked up our plastic garbage, and began the last few hours ride to the village where our truck would meet us. The landscape again was much like yesterday's trip. We all took photos while John was busily recording latitude & longitude with a hand GPS unit and comparing points on the maps. I was surprised at how accurate and useful these little devices seem to be in the right hands.

We finally reached the village and everyone climbed rather stiffly out of the boat and made their way up to the road. We were only a few kilometers from our starting point in Tha Kaek town a couple of days earlier!

Dancing in Tha Kaek

Robin, John & Sharon all went back to Tha Kaek, while Simon, Khamsone & I stayed on the side of the road drinking iced Lao beer. Beer always tastes best after some physical exertion. Today was no exception and the beer tasted wonderful. So wonderful was it that we managed to get though nearly a dozen bottles!

We finally staggered into Tha Kaek that night and eventually crashed in the comfortable air-conditioned room of a local guest house we use there.

WHAT A TRIP! I have never done anything like it before, and I look forward to going back as soon as possible. It was a special trip through a fantastic land!