Caving in SE Asia

23 August 2011

Battambang Caves 4 - Kampong Poi area

Kampong Poi (Puoy) in in the Battambang area of Cambodia. It is reached by taking the only junction when driving from Sampeu towards Sdao, on the road to the border town of Pailin. The area is famous for its large manmade lake.

We stopped at a wat but there was no cave, so we drove through the village

to another part of the hill. We climbed some stairs to the monks’ place, and found a small cave Muy Chung (Muk Chniang)

with an open roof at the back and horizontal bedding. An older monk arrived and said “how are you” a few times, but that was the extent of his English.

From here we drove into a quarry

but it seemed to be dolomite rather than limestone.

We went back into Takriem village and wanted to get to a cave high up in Phnom Ta Kriem with an entrance visible from the road.

We got a local boy to guide us and with about 10 kids had a 20 minute walk along the edge of the fields and then climbed a very steep track

The kids ran up the hill like mountain goats. At the top there was a good view over the plain

There were 2 entrances. The right side hole had a ladder and the kids swarmed up this.

The cave was just It was one small chamber with 2 linking holes in the floor, and some concrete linga bases.

I didn't realise so many kids had joined us and there was a queue

on the ladder to get back down.

The left side cave was the bat cave Roung/Laang Prakiu,

but we couldn’t go in because of the stench of guano produced by many bats.

It was so strong, absolutely pure ammonia, which is rare. Michael braved a quick forage to find a dead bat (Tadarida plicata) - we were collecting cave fauna for identification.
I don't know if the kids thought we wanted to eat it, but one boy went into the cave and came out with a live bat which I was able to photograph before releasing. It was a free-tailed bat.

For me going down the hill was as hard as going up

Back in the village the locals were able to drink from water containers

but we preferred to stick to safe cans

Battambang caves 3 - Crocodile Hill area, Phnom Krapoeu

Phnom Krapoeu is north of the main road from Battambang to Pailin, opposite Phnom Sampeu.

and as seen from main road

Wat Kantoy is a cave temple at Roung Kantoy Krapoeu, also known as Crocodile Cave

After surveying that cave, we drove back to a rice mill, and a local led us up the hill to Laang Khla, Tiger Cave. This is very short and we didn't descend a drop. There were nice views over the plains and across to Sampeu.

On another day we went to Phnom Truang Muang (Taroung Moan). This hill is east of Phnom Krapoeu and is known as Chicken Hill. There is a wat,

There is a cave by the footpath at the back of the wat. A fixed metal ladder leads down into the cave,

where I spotted a Striped Kukri Snake (kait meas)

The cave is quite short and has Buddha statues.

I think this is a cannonball tree

Walking down the hill we looked at a small 6m shaft entrance covered with netting. Apparently 3 people died in here, maybe from CO2.

On another day we went to the Vipassana Centre on Phnom Trung Tee, opposite Sampeu. It is a small hill. We were shown a 37m long cave which had been artificially opened, probably for the calcite crystals.

19 August 2011

Battambang Caves 2 - Sdao area

In 2008 I joined an international caving expedition to Battambang, Cambodia.

This area is beyond Phnom Sampeu, on the main road No 10 to the Thai border. The main village is Sdao, in Rattanak Mondol district. We went here the first 2 days of the expedition.

The limestone hills are rather small here. Phnom Chak Treang

There were 3 of us, plus 2 guys from official departments, and then we picked up 2 men from a local office as well as an armed policeman, and each day we acquired a local guide - so that meant 6 locals for 3 of us (not including our driver).

The first cave we visited was basically one chamber, with Buddha statues and beds.

Graffiti in Khmer and Thai

We walked around the field to the 2nd cave. At the entrance a farmer had dug in the floor to deepen it for monks and had found pottery with bones and stone tools, so our official guys were able to collect some pieces.

A ladder led up and another led down to a continuation of the cave.

and there were some big roots in the cave

From here we went to an archaeological site, Laang Spean. It is is bit further around the hill.

It is a large rock shelter.

French archaeologists dug here in the 1960’s. There are 3 trenches, and they found stone tools from 6-7000 BC and pottery from 4290 BC.

Spean means bridge and there is an impressive rock bridge at the top end of the cave.

16 August 2011

Huat Tian Keong cave temple at Bercham, Perak

At the end of June I visted some cave temples in the Bercham area, north of Ipoh, in Perak. Accompanied by Hong, we visited temples at Gunung Bercham and also Gunung Tambun (the latter is not to be confused with the hill where the Tambun cave paintings are).

During the afternoon we went to Gunung Tambun and found ourselves at the Huat Tian Keong cave temple. This is located right next to the Bourgainvillea Club. Although the media generally writes this temple is at Bercham, it is actually located in Gunung Tambun. I had visited this cave in Dec 2004.

The cave is short, basically a single chamber with 2 entrance pasages. However the main feature of the cave is the fact there is a bar/restaurant inside the cave! It is the first time I have seen a bar in a temple cave. Of course we had a beer or two and then decided to have a late lunch as well. It was very pleasant sitting in a natural cave passage and at the time of our visit there was a nice wind blowing.

The temple has a mix of Taoist, Buddhist and Hindu deities. The main deity is Huat Tian Keong (Datuk Hitam). Outside the cave there is a small turtle pond. Also an altar with several figures of the Earth God, wearing songkok, jacket and sarong etc.

There was an interesting feature about this temple in The Star 18 Aug 2011 as it celebrates the 100th year anniversay.