| Muller | Hitchhiking Vietnam
Page 102 |
"A cave! With glittering stalactites and stalagmites... Oh Mum, you can't imagine how beautiful it was. I think we are the first to ever be inside..."
Jay and I were following a weed-choked trail when it opened abruptly onto a blackened field. At its base a flurry of snow-white butterflies hovered above a patch of yellow mustard plants. I wandered down to make use of my camera and stumbled upon a hole in the ground no larger than a half-sized door. A bubbling, crystal stream poured out of it and disappeared into a cairn of rocks. I wormed my way inside.
It opened into a low-slung cavern filled with stalactites and ankle-deep in frigid mountain water. I borrowed Jay's lighter and worked my way upstream, foot by foot, until the flame died... and still there was no end in sight. I pulled out my camera and used the flash, imprinting an instant memory on my brain and feeling my way blindly forward. When the camera gave up I crawled back out, determined to return with chalk and flashlights.
We took the shortest path home, arguing all the way. Jay had not the slightest desire to explore the mysterious cave. We would have to hike back up the mountain, our Vietnamese flashlights were unreliable at best and what if the damn cave ended five feet beyond what I had seen? And by the way, how was he going to light his cigarette now that I had broken his Bic?
I listened, smiled, and dreamed of crystalline caverns, towering cathedrals and glittering waterfalls of stalactites.
The next morning we reached the cave armed with four flashlights, a dozen bulbs, batteries and candles. I forged ahead and was brought up short by a smooth, blank wall some ten feet further than I had gone the day before. I heard a sour laugh behind me. Bitterly disappointed, I waved the flashlight off to the left where the stalactites grew down to the shallow stream. There was a six-inch gap trailing backwards into blackness. I dropped my cameras and squirmed lizard-like through the hole, leaving bits of shirt and skin on the low-hanging stalactites. Ten feet, fifteen, and the ceiling abruptly sloped up and away. I slithered along a narrow channel, over a rock and there it was - my crystal cavern. A tumbling waterfall of glittering rock, sinuous sheets of smoky stone, a hundred hundred stalactites. I stood in awe.
I eventually crawled back to collect my cameras and coax Jay through. We lit candles and explored the chamber. Another small opening beckoned me yet further upstream. I appropriated a flashlight, dropped low into the water and squirreled forward. I crawled through corridors, over dome-shaped stalagmites, up narrow chimneys and down stalactite stairs. At every bend I promised myself I'd turn around but always there was one more stretch and I'd want to see where it led. At last I heard the thunderous roar of rushing water and stumbled into a mist-filled cavern. A solid jet shot out of the wall above me and tumbled down over two stories of jagged rocks, to plunge into a thigh-deep pool. Not a hint of light crept through that black, forbidding wall. I turned back.
The journey out seemed far longer than the exciting adventure in. What if I should slip and drop my tinsel flashlight into the watery void? What if the Vietnamese bulb should live up to its reputation and last no longer than a soap bubble on a windy day? What if that wall caved in behind me and... I crawled through the final gauntlet of grasping stalactites and staggered into the candlelit chamber beside Jay.
