Monday, March 7, 2022
7:10 a.m. Jungle Guesthouse
Pang Mapha, Thailand
The return trip to Lod Cave turned out wonderful. I did decide to go back, and I’m very glad that I did. I’m not entirely sure what the difference was. I mentioned yesterday a few of the reasons I might not have fully appreciated the cave on my first visit. And I think those are all valid reasons. Yet, put them all together, and I don’t think they can fully account for how much better my second visit was. It was like I was seeing the cave for the first time. It felt like a completely different place.
The cave opens, the signs say, at nine in the morning, and I timed my scooter trip out there to arrive shortly after nine. And right from the start, the experience was brand new. On my first trip out, I made a wrong turn, and I went for a scooter ride around the surrounding village first even before I went to the cave. And working my way back to the cave took me up and down steep hills and across narrow bridges. And then when I got to the cave, I saw a sign with an arrow that pointed to where you were supposed to park your scooter. So I did. And people had to tell me that I wasn’t allowed to park there. They pointed to somewhere else. I don’t know why the sign pointed to the wrong place, but it did. Signs are often non-intuitive in Thailand.
Interestingly, the booth situation and the vaccine certificate situation had changed on this second visit. And it was a little bit better, though still confusing. At least this time I knew that I was supposed to ignore the motorcycle parking arrow. And I parked my scooter in the right place. No one had to yell at me about that. That was good. There was another weird detail, though. As I rode my scooter up to the right place, which was near the entrance gate, I spotted a man sitting on the ground near the entrance with a bunch of fish food. And my heart sank a little bit. He was clearly a beggar of some kind. And I’m fine with beggars. I’ve been around them so much in my life that I don’t feel awkward around them. I just give them some money and get on with my day. But this man was surrounded by bags of fish food. He was selling them for 20 baht per bag. And my brain instantly started processing: This cave complex sells fish food, so is this man connected to the official cave organization or not? On my first visit, I bought my fish food from a woman sitting at an official-looking table on the inside of the gate. But if I buy my fish food from this beggar, am I now denying the cave complex some of their income? Is this beggar infringing on their territory? I didn’t want to buy fish food from him and then have the people at the cave be annoyed with me when I show up with fish food already. The beggar was in full view of all the staff. In a way, I wanted to just give the man 20 baht but not take any fish food. And then I’d pay 20 baht at the official table to buy fish food there. But that would be weird. And this beggar did annoy me to an extent because he kept yelling at me the entire time I was at my scooter. He was trying to get my attention and make me notice him.
The whole thing was awkward. I had a lot to do at my scooter. I was planning to film my cave visit with my Panasonic G85, and I needed to familiarize myself with the controls and go over the menu and the settings and make sure everything was working. I needed to attach my microphone and do some audio tests to make sure that that was working. I needed time to get organized and settle into the experience. But the whole time, this beggar was shouting at me. I waved at him and indicated that I saw him. And I tried to reassure him that I was going to give him some money and he didn’t have to worry. He didn’t have to shout. But he kept shouting. It was something I didn’t need to start my visit to the cave.
And I ended up wondering what was going on with this guy. The fish food and the bags it was in and the price was all exactly the same as the bags that the Lod Cave staff sold. So was he sanctioned? Did he actually work for the Lod Cave? I didn’t think so. And, to be honest, I kind of wished the Lod Cave staff had told him to leave. I needed time and space and quiet to get my cameras set up and to think about the experience to come. And it was super annoying to have this beggar shouting at me the whole time. But of course, it’s not very nice to have these thoughts about a beggar. And when I finally walked up to him, I saw that he also had mental problems or at least nervous system problems. His face and his voice and his mannerisms were all very strange. He couldn’t speak properly or control the movements of his face and hands. I ended up buying a bag of fish food from him.
Another big difference is that there appeared to be a functioning booth on the outside of the gate now. It was like they’d read my mind from the last visit. Yet, it was still confusing. On the right side of the gate, there was the big booth I’d seen on my first visit. It was wide open. It had a wide counter with a bunch of ledgers on it. There was a big sign there that said in English something like “Visitor Information and Registration.” And there was also a sign on the wall that said that you must show your vaccination certificate. This was the obvious place to start your visit to the cave. But it was still completely empty. And as I walked towards it, I heard voices shouting at me, and another soldier came up to me and pointed me towards a second booth that was on the left side of the gate. It looked far less official than this “Visitor Information and Registration” booth, but there were two women sitting on chairs inside that second booth, and when I went over there, I saw that they also had registration books on the counter. And they sold fish food.
And at this second booth, I encountered a woman that spoke excellent English. And she asked me to sign in. And I paid the 500-baht ticket price. And I confessed to them that I’d just bought fish food from the beggar. The beggar was on the ground about twenty feet from this booth, and we could all see him. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to buy food from him or buy it from them. And I wanted to apologize in case I’d done something wrong. And then in a weird twist, this woman took out 20 baht and handed it to the woman that seemed to be in charge of the fish food on the counter. Apparently, 20 baht was being taken from my 500 baht and given to this fish food woman to make up for the fact that I had bought fish food from the unofficial beggar. Or something like that. It made no sense to me.
As before, I was given no receipt or ticket or brochure or map or anything at all. I took advantage of this woman’s English ability to ask her some questions. I was interested in particular in how they assigned guides to visitors. How did they choose which guide got the job? And this led to all kinds of trouble. It’s similar to asking questions inside stores. The clerks always assume you are fighting with them over money and trying to get a cheaper price. I never am, but they never understand that. And in this case, the woman thought I wanted to choose my own guide. And she said that that wasn’t possible. They assigned the guide. I explained that I understood that. I didn’t want to choose my own guide. I just wanted to know what their system was. There were 165 official guides. There must be competition among the guides. There had to be a system whereby only a certain number of guides were scheduled to show up each day. And then there had to be a system such that they all got an equal amount of work each day. And I was curious how this worked. But the woman kept telling me that I couldn’t choose my own guide. In her mind, I had become a troublemaking tourist making demands. I never was able to convince her otherwise, but I did learn that they had a system in place to schedule a certain number of guides based on how many visitors they were expecting on a given day. And then those guides were assigned based on their number. I even saw a list of guide names and numbers in a book. And apparently, guides 86 to 100 were scheduled to work today. And the guides were assigned based on whichever number came up next in the rotation. A funny thing is that after I managed to get all this information, I was told that I wouldn’t be getting an official guide. They were going to give me a trainee. At first, I thought they were asking me if it would be okay if a trainee came along with my official guide to learn the ropes. And of course I was fine with it. None of the guides speak any English, so it makes no difference what happens. All they do is walk ahead of you holding a lantern. I would have been much happier to have no guide at all. Just give me the lantern, and I’ll carry it myself. So it didn’t matter if a trainee came along. But it turned out that I didn’t even get an official guide. All I got was the trainee. And this trainee was a young teenage boy. I’m not sure how this even qualified as training, because no one came along to show him the ropes. He was all by himself. And I ended up doing his training. I seemed to know a lot more about the cave than he did. I had already visited the cave after all, and I had spent a lot of time poring over maps and photographs. I had even finished my YouTube video about my first visit, so I had been living with that experience and thinking about it for a long time. As we went through the cave, we passed a number of attractions that I remembered from my first visit. There were places where there are signs talking about this or that stalagmite or stalactite or other cave feature. And this young trainee just marched past them. And I had to speak to him and call him back so that he would stop and shine his lantern on the sign so I could read the information and then look at the cave feature, whatever it was. On the positive side, this put me more in charge, and I was able to slow right down and take as much video as I wanted. I didn’t feel as rushed as I did on my first visit. And that, combined with the much better image on my Panasonic G85 LCD screen and viewfinder, made for a much better experience. As I wrote earlier, I felt like I was seeing the cave complex for the very first time. I realized that I really didn’t appreciate it or see it clearly on my first visit.
From a technology point of view, I ended up being very happy to use the G85 instead of the GoPro. I don’t know if my GoPro is getting older and is starting to break down, but more problems have been creeping in for a while. And using the GoPro has been getting more and more difficult. Just how frustrating and difficult it had become wasn’t clear until I found myself using the G85 and no longer experiencing any of those problems. I felt a wave of relief. The GoPro battery doesn’t last long, for one thing. I had to stop multiple times on my first cave visit to change the battery in the GoPro. Plus, the GoPro has a lot of trouble connecting to the microphone, and every time I changed the battery or had to turn the camera on, I had to do audio tests to make sure the microphone was working and this would take three or four attempts. The GoPro also overheated and shut down twice during my first cave visit. The GoPro often freezes and I have no choice but to pull the battery to shut it down and turn it back on. There were so many problems. But the G85 is completely different. The microphone always connects. I never have to worry about it. Just one battery lasted for the entire day, so I never had to worry about that. It never overheats. It never freezes up. It’s just a solid workhorse without any systemic problems. On top of that, its micro four-thirds sensor takes in vastly more light than the tiny GoPro sensor, and I could actually get usable video inside the dark cave. The only problems with the G85 is that since it is a real camera, it is quite a bit larger and heavier and more complex to use. And the G85 struggles with autofocus in video mode. But other than that, using it was a wonderful experience. I might have to give up on the GoPro life. It’s too stressful. GoPros are simply too unreliable.
Basically, I had a wonderful time inside the cave on this second visit. It was fantastic. And I even saw some more details about the organization of the place. I still don’t understand how it works, but I noticed that after I gave 500 baht to the woman at the counter, she handed the entire 500 baht to the trainee guide. And after we returned to the cave entrance on the bamboo raft, he paid the raft operator. All my trainee had was the 500-baht note, and he tried to get change from the raft operator. But he didn’t have change. So the boat operator came with us back to the surface, and my trainee got change from another lantern guide. And then he handed the raft operator 200 baht. Based on that, it looked like the raft guy got 200 baht and the lantern guide pocketed the rest. But if that’s the case, how does the Lod Cave itself get any money? I assumed the Lod Cave would get most of the money, and then they’d pay the guides and the rafter operator out of that. On my first visit and on this second visit, I gave both my guides a tip of 100 baht. I assumed they had been paid a relatively small amount by the Lod Cave organization and a tip would be appreciated. But I think both my first guide and this trainee were surprised and confused by my tip. They seemed not to understand what I was doing. And it could be that a tip wasn’t necessary at all. If they were getting 300 baht per trip into the cave, they could be paid relatively well without any tips. 300 baht is the minimum wage in Thailand for a full day of work, I believe. If one of these guides takes two, three, or four groups into the cave per day, which is easily possible, they could be making many times more than the daily wage and for really doing nothing at all. All they do is walk around holding a lantern. I probably didn’t need to tip them.
This second visit to the cave was also better because I now realized that once the visit to the cave’s interior was over, I was free to hang out and do whatever I wanted for as long as I wanted. Last time, I kind of felt like I had to stick with my guide all the way back to the entrance and then I felt some pressure to just leave. Plus, I had spent so much time just figuring the place out that I had been there a long time. But before I went in this time, I asked the English-speaking woman at the counter about this. For one thing, there is a Visitor Center. But it was closed last time. But this woman said it was open now. And there is a trail that goes around the cave and to the exit. I wanted to walk along this trail, but I wasn’t sure if I could do that without a guide. I was told that after we came out of the cave, I was free to do whatever I wanted. So I went down to the river and I fed the fish there. And I went to the Visitor Center. And I hiked along the trail to the cave exit. And I looked at all the exhibits that were scattered about. I didn’t really have the time or energy to do all that on my first visit. So I got so much more out of this visit.
Today, I am leaving Pang Mapha and going to Pai. At least I think I am. I paid for three nights here, and my time is up. I could check to see if I could extend my stay, but I don’t have big plans for this area today. I wanted to visit Ban Jabo and the Lod Cave, and I’ve done both of those things. Even if I stay here another day and night, I’d probably just hang out and study my G85 and get caught up on some YouTube stuff. Unfortunately, the Internet connection is very slow here. I can’t upload any videos from here. I need to look at a calendar and make some plans and figure out what I want to do between now and my return to Mae Sot.
1:47 p.m.
I have jumped ahead in time and space. I’m now in the town of Pai, and I have taken a little bungalow at a low-budget place called Mr. Jan’s Guesthouse. I stayed here one time before, and there were many things about it that I liked. The only thing I disliked last time is that according to Agoda’s pictures, I had booked a separate bungalow. But when I showed up, I was in a unit that was just half of a bungalow. And this bungalow had a rickety wooden floor, and I felt uncomfortable, because the second room was so close, and if another person was in there, we’d hear each other, and by walking around, we shook the whole building. It just wasn’t that comfortable.
I checked out a bunch of places on Agoda again before leaving Pang Mapha, and I hemmed and hawed about a variety of guest houses and hotels. It makes sense to stay in a new place and at least have that experience, if nothing else. The new place could be good or awful, but at least it would be a new experience. One impulse I was careful to resist. And that is the impulse to stay in a place that has a nice setting. These places with nice settings are generally outside of town a little bit so that they can be surrounded by fields. The pictures always look so nice. Very appealing. But every time I succumb to the allure of those pictures, I regret it. I always end up wishing I was at a place in the middle of town. I want to be within walking distance of everything. I want to be among all the other people. I generally am annoyed by other people, but I do like to have them around me.
I was very close to reserving a room at one of these countryside places again. I was being sucked in by all the glowing reviews from other people. But then I noticed that this place and others had a lot of available rooms. Agoda uses all kinds of tricks to make you panic and think you are losing out on the best deal ever and you better book a room right away so you don’t miss it. If you wait too long, they imply, someone else will snatch up that room. But I noticed that in most places, they had lots of rooms empty. The last time I was in Pai, it was quite busy, and everywhere was booked. But we appear to be in a low season now, and there is no problem with finding a room. One trick I noticed is that Agoda will use a notice that says, “This is our last room!” Even Mr. Jan’s has this notice on its listing. But the trick is that their rooms are divided up into types. So that might be their last room of that particular type. But they have lots of other rooms. And these places will make every single room a separate type. And that means every listing says “This is our last room!” But it might say that ten times – once for every room. So, in fact, they still have ten empty rooms even though the listing implies they only have one left. Very sneaky.
Anyway, I decided that wherever I end up staying, I could just wait until I get to Pai. And then I could visit these places in person and look at the rooms and the property. I was thinking in particular of Mr. Jan’s. I wanted to stay there. But I didn’t want to be in the last room they stuck me in. I wanted the individual bungalow as shown in the picture. So I rode my scooter to Pai and then went straight to Mr. Jan’s. I spoke to a very friendly older woman at the window, and to my delight, once she found out I was looking for low-budget accommodation, she brought me all the way to the back corner of their garden property and showed me the exact bungalow I was interested in. I love this place. It’s a real throwback to the old days of backpacking in Southeast Asia. For a normal person who has money and who has come to Thailand for a holiday, this place would be awful, I suppose. It is quite bare bones. There are no luxuries. There is no air conditioning. And the room itself is relatively small. But for the type of place it is and for the price, it is fantastic. It really is. It is far nicer than it needs to be. The bed is large. It’s not a single, which is what you would normally get at this price. It is also a separate bungalow with a solid floor with nice tiles. It has a verandah on the outside with some furniture. And there is some furniture on the inside. I can set up my Benka cooker on a little table, and I love that. Despite the low price, the towels on the bed were sculpted into the typical hotel swans. And they supplied soap. And it’s very nice soap. It isn’t just your typical tiny hotel soap. The bungalow has its own private bathroom. It is quite simple as well, but it has a hot water heater. And this heater works well. The room has two windows, and the door has a window built into it as well, so the room gets lots of natural light. There is even a screen door, and both windows have screens. And that means you can open all the windows and the door and get a nice breeze going through and you don’t have to worry about letting in mosquitoes. The WiFi doesn’t appear to be that strong, but at least it works. On top of all that, the bungalow is located in a nice garden. And that is despite being right in the heart of the town of Pai. You can’t get any closer to the Walking Street without booking a room right on Walking Street. Mr. Jan’s Guest House is on the very next street over. And the people are very nice. That’s one thing that impressed me greatly the last time I was here. And the room even comes with a simple breakfast and coffee in the morning. It also has lots of convenient parking for the scooter. On Agoda, this bungalow was listed as 240 baht per night. And it’s a bargain at that price. But since I was here in person, the woman told me it cost 150 baht per night, which is $4.50 US. My bungalow in Pang Mapha was certainly nicer, but it cost nearly four times as much at 550 baht per night. And it lacked a lot of the simple features of this cheap bungalow, such as a screen door. Seemingly small things, such as a screen door and multiple windows, make a big difference.