Vang Vieng is surrounded by nature, rock hills, rivers, small stream... it brings me back to the 80's of Malaysia. Where agriculture is everywhere, livestocks walking around freely in human society.

I can't help shout our loud, "Hello, Mother Nature!!"

little ponnies, as well as horses were left freely, and they were fed by themselves with glass growing green along the river.

As we were impress by the environment of Maylyn Guest House, on the other side of the river, so we check out from Say Song Guest House and get across the river. The owner of Maylyn Guest House, Mr. Joe is an Irish and had been there for more than 7 years, he really can joke.

We feel very comfortable staying in Maylyn, as the accomodation there is bangalow, giving maximum privacy as compare to most of the guest house around town area, which is apartmment type.

Today, we meet an Indian man who just graduated from Singapore University, Nitin, and we asked him to join us for the journey to the cave. The place, Tham Phu Kham is located 6 km from Maylyn guest House, we rent bicycles for the journey on umpaved road .

The Cave

There is a cave lies here, full of stalactite (so call, growing rock), an unspoiled one.

Inside the cave, it's so tranquil, so harmony, giving peace of mind, and calm us emotionally. Even only looking from the entrance, can get the calming effect.

Only a few meters from the entrance, there is a big chamber, lies a shrine of sleeping buddha. Which allowing visitors to seek blessing before entering the cave of total darkness.

Not far from the entrance, due to the winding passage, is a place with total darkness. With only one torch we have, three of us were scared while walking deeper and deeper.

It was really, horribly scary as I try to switch off the only torch we have, for a few seconds. Even I try so hard to open both my eyes, as widely as possible, but there is not even a stream of light reflected to them.

After nearly 1 hour slow walk, we finally touched the wall. I think we've move to the wrong way, and arrived at a big chamber, smaller that the entrance.

There, we found a nicely shaped stalactite. Further more, there are crystal chips encased inside the stalactite! As we beam out torch light toward them, they shine like a rainbow. So colourful!

I try to take a picture of those crystal, but cannot, it was so dark for my Nikon P5100 to focus on them.

We were too tired and feel unsecured to continue exploring, we decided to exit the cave... As we see some sun light beaming from the entrance of the cave, what a relief! Woah, We were like having a journey to hell and back to hevean!

Bicycling is very nice to travel around the hill. The scenary is very nice and enjoyable.

This night, Nitin (standing on left), I (rstanding on right) and Monica (sitting on left), have a small gathering with travellers from indonesia who stay in Maylyn Guest House, Yusuf Chandra (center), Hadi Sunarja (right), John Rusdiah, and Suripto Irwan (not in the picture).

We share about our travel experiences, talk about business, lifestyles, everything.