Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) Tourist Guide


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Nam Bor Phi Cave

Text : Tachyon Image : Sumanee

"Thirty curves...Thirty-one curves...Thirty-two curves..." and so on and so forth.

We fell asleep at that point, having taken a mild sedative - as anyone (who's not driving) might do to avoid travel-sickness on that long and infinitely loopy road round to Mae Hong Son.

Mae Hong Son is also known as Muang Sam Mok (the City of Three Mists), because surrounded by the mountains of the Thanon Thongchai and Daen Lao ranges, it's invested in mists in all three seasons.

This is 'Thailand's Switzerland' (minus a few metres here and there, but plus an awful lot more trees) we're talking about. Now in this tangled knot of mountains there are infinities of caves, many still to be discovered, and one that's recently been stumbled into and explored is known now as Tam Nam Bor Phi - The Cave of the Ghostly Swamp. Now doesn't that raise a tingle in the blood and a stirring of the hair on the back of your neck? Located in Amphur Pang-mapha to the west of Mae Hong Son city it's a very worthy destination for the adventurous, since only about 100 people have been there (according to Peak Adventure Tour, the only group offering to take tourists there). And what they don't say is how many of that one hundred have come back again...

Well, your intrepid team from the Chiang Mai Tourist Guide rose to the challenge a couple of weeks back - and rose very early in the morning too, since the trip by road takes about four to five hours all told. This was an inaugural press trip so five aircon vans were waiting for us in front of Peak Project Night Bazaar. And off we went, in a soft sprinkle of rain, and with mountains that were wreathed in sea mists all the way - at least all the way that I was conscious of. At least till curve thirty-three.

Anyway, round about noon, there we were, at the Muser village of Luk-khaulam. And having fortified the inner man, we readily put one foot before another, the photographer and I, struggling to keep up as our guides led us into the softly damp forest along a sinuous up and down trail. Too bad we don't get time for regular exercise in our job. Just walking the stairs to the third floor of our office building, once in a while. But we struggled on, steeper and wilder going all the time, our Peak Project leader and his stout team of three Muser guides ahead of us and the rest of the press party. Rocks, trees, clouds, and slippery footing. But onward, no complaints. Occasionally we stopped to take a rest. And when one of our guides saw how we were struggling under the weight of the photo gear, he gave us a helping hand - all thanks to him. But if we were suffering physically, what benefits were accruing to our spiritual beings - the beauty of the scenery! The knowledge that we were doing our job so selflessly!

About three in the afternoon we reached our destination, a very impressive cliff some 150 metres high - say the equivalent of a six-storey building. Here the Peak's team of climbers scrambled up another part of the cliff, so that they could let themselves down into the entrance of the cave. We by this time - along with the other inaugurals - had reached the limits of our intrepidity and left the descent into the cave to the professionals - and good luck to them, we thought! A savage gash in the cliff, darkness out of which we caught a glimpse of stalagmites and stalactites, and from which sinister bats were already flittering. Suppose they did not return, the thought arose. How should we find our way back to civilisation? Gulp! After all, it was just beginning to get twilighty, and in distant Chiang Mai people would be thinking of well-lit meals, in comfortable, music-soothed restaurants, and comfortable beds for the night. While here we were - the wild, wet, wilderness. The wind in the trees beginning to sing of wolves to us....

But the story had a happy end. We didn't leave our bones to whiten among the rocks and vegetation, our spirits to join those of the Nam Bor Phi Cave. Our leaders returned to us. With them we walked down through the forest in better time than we'd climbed up through it. The setting sun shed its kindly beams around us and there was time to enjoy the wild flowers bedecking the edges of the path - flowers that we admired, but didn't pick, as we of the eco-conscious generation have learned is best for all of us.

There was time for a meal, prepared by the local village chef especially for us - and glad we were of it. Climbing takes it out of you, so you need most acutely to put something back. Then we were on the road again, back to Chiang Mai - one curve, two curves, three curves and so on.

I'd like to go again, but I need to tone up those muscles first. And maybe I should put in some practice climbing at the Peak itself in the Night Bazaar. Then next time I'll have a story to tell you - stalagmites, stalactites, bats, darkness and ghostly presences...But that'll be another day.