Shuanghe Caves

Day 1

We arrived at our hotel late at night so we never saw it in daylight so waking up and getting a glimpse of this amazing place in the early morning light was a really good start to the vacation.

After a quick breakfast we were eager to head out to the caves and start our exploration. Luckily the hotel was near the entrance to one of the caves but that 10min walk was hot and sweaty. Every day of the trip was 35C+ and i don’t know how humid it was but “sweat running down our face”-humid at least.

Entering the cave.

It was so nice to walk from 35C+ to a nice 15C (total guess) and low humidity.

100% Wikipedia information following in this post.
Apparently, this is the 5th longest cave network in the world, at 250km+.

There were 4 different paths to take in this cave.

The most expensive one was climbing and repelling down to some awesome places, too expensive for us tho (1200RMB).

We went with the cheapest, walk yourself, 3.5h-path. It was awesome tho, with big cave spaces, waterfall, WATERFALL! In the middle of this path, there was a big, green forest which was amazing to see.

We didn’t know exactly what to expect during the walk and had no idea about the exposed forest in the middle of the cave. We saw daylight coming from the end of the cave and thought “that was a short walk, maybe the 3.5h is for old people or something?” and then forest!

It was so humid outside the cave, you could see the mist from inside the cave. The first photo below is just that, it’s sharp but it’s just so humid.

After melting in the outside weather again for a bit, we got back into the cave and kept going. The second half had stalactites, some connecting from ceiling to floor. There were rooms (or chambers?) with completely still water and tons of stalactites. It looks good on photos but even better in real life, it was so other-worldly to see it.

Out!
Back to the heat and sweat. We were so happy we were near the hotel, picked up some ice-cold waters on the way back to the room for an ice-cold shower, and then everything was alright again for a little while.

The afternoon was spent wandering around the local village, eating, seeing a cat. We went back early, the heat killed us for the first day.

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