TN8 Kho Pua 1

Kho Pua 1 or "Many Bats" cave is situated in the Ban Chieng Chan area at an altitude of 1780m. The entrance porch can be found at the bottom of a doline where the trees can give you some hold for descending its steep slopes. The ceiling of the entrance porch consists of breccie. When you enter a few meters into the porch there are 2 leads steeply going down (about 40 degrees). At some point a rope is needed because the underground is very smooth, all debris is washed out. The surrounding rock has changed into very dark limestone. Getting down the slope you arrive into a chamber where there's a nicely polished wall of breccie, the cave changes its direction: this is a fault. The bottom is covered with pebbles from now on.  There is a lead that still can be followed. After a few meters you get to a squeeze and what is remarkable about it is the change of temperature: the cold cave changes very suddenly into a sauna. The air gets bad and humid and it is rather hot from now on. The passage ends into a siphon... Just before the siphon a bird has made its nest on a flattened rock. The nest is built with dry leaves and mud, but at the inside some fresh green leaves can be spotted...   

TN11 Cang Dung

After a long day of prospection in the area of Ban Chieng Chan with little success, we decided to get back to the so-called hotel. While driving back we met a farmer who knew another cave nearby the main road. It was only about fifty meters long, but the huge entrance was worth a visit he said. We hesitated on taking the topo-material along but luckily we did. Exploring Cang Dung was very very funny and full of surprises: after every corner we looked a new lead would start, bringing the total development to 305 meters and getting us really late back to our base camp!

At the right side of the entrance porch the main lead goes north. The passage is covered with flowstone and climbing down some blocks you get to fossil sinter pools trying to eat your suit. The passage gets low and when crawling through you reach another smaller entrance in the middle of the jungle.