During my travels I’ve seen some incredible places and have had some fantastic experiences. But, when you have a day when you say “That was amazing! I’ve never done that before”, you feel beyond grateful! That’s how I felt after visiting the Kong Lor cave.
Four hours north of the town of Thakhek in Laos, is the Kong Lor cave. The Kong Lor cave is a 7K limestone tunnel formed by the Hinboun river. It’s one of the top tourist destinations, but very hard to get to. The Stray Asia Bus crew got there just about 3pm during a huge monsoon down pour. After enjoying a beer Lao while waiting for the down pour to stop, we entered the cave. After walking for about 10 minutes we got into some little boats each holding three people and a driver. We traveled for 15 – 20 in pitch black, except for occasional flashes of light from our drivers head lamp off the limestone rocks. Inside the cave was unreal!!! The air was still and chilly. It felt like a huge sound stage. There were occasional water falls coming down next to the boat and sometimes on top of us. The boat stopped in shallow water, and we had to get out and walk for 10 minutes. We did this three or four times. After traveling through the cave for 45 minutes to an hour we came out the other side to a picture-perfect image of marvelous limestone cliffs and lush jungle everywhere. It was like being in the “Land Of the Lost”. Stopping at a remote little village, we bought a few beer Lao and headed back to the boats. Our journey back was “express” and only took thirty minutes. In total, we were gone two hours and traveled 7K (4 miles) in a cave. I’ve been traveling for 7 1/2 months, but have never experienced anything like this. It was AWESOME!!!