Print-friendlyAmphoe Mae Suai
Tham Mae Suai
Approx. 47Q 0554000 2178100 COT CR 18
This cave is marked on the Northern Thailand tourist map and is mentioned in Barlow's online guide to caves in Chiang Rai. On a day trip over the hills from Fang we spent several hours driving around trying to find this cave. The reference described the cave being about 5 km north of the town of Mae Suai. There is a signpost to the cave off the H109 a few hundred metres before the junction with the H118 indicating that the cave is to the north along a dirt road. Going along this track brought us to a new dam and we could see a large limestone outcrop on the other side of the lake created by the dam. Whilst surveying the lake from a temple that was under construction a monk overheard us wondering about the cave’s location and confirmed that the access road was now flooded. The cave can now only be reached by boat and the monk gave us the telephone number for the boatman if we wished to pay a visit (01 9605671)
Amphoe Wiang Chai
Tham Mae Ook Roo
Downstream entrance: 47Q 0610999 2199149 Alt.: 385 m
Length: estimated to be 3,000 m of which we saw about 300 m. VR: ~3 m
This cave is located in a limestone tower near the village of Ban Rong Ha. This area has several limestone towers and is marked as 'beautiful landscape' on tourist maps. When traveling from the Chiang Rai along the H1152 towards Phaya Mengrai the towers are first seen near Ban Pa Bong. Following the road through Ban Pa Bong a quarry is passed on the left and soon after there is a road on the left, near km 26. If you reach Ban Rong Ha you have gone to far. Heading down the side road a tower is right in front of you. At the foot of the tower there is a T junction where you turn right and after a couple of hundred metres in obscure resurgence is on the left at the foot of the tower. There is a spirit house, a small parking area and some of the trees are wrapped with orange cloth (the orange cloth is an attempt to show that the trees are holy and so protect them).
This cave made it into the Thai national press in July 2003 due to an environmental dispute between local farmers and the quarry company. Expansion plans by one of the local quarrying companies, who have almost completely removed two neighbouring limestone towers, threatened the hill with Tham Mae Ook Roo which is an important source of water for farmers during the dry season. Local villagers protested against the quarries' plans and the National Human Rights Commission visited the area and explored what they estimated to be 3 km of passage in the cave. There are two known stream sinks on the other side of the mountain, but an estimated ten times more water resurges from the cave and the stream also resurges in the dry season when the sinking streams are dry. In December 2002 the assistant village headman who had been leading the protests was shot and killed. This understandably frightened many of the villagers into withdrawing their protests.
We asked for directions to the cave at a noodle store in Ban Rong Ha, but the lady claimed not to have heard of the cave. After driving around in circles we ended up back in Ban Rong Ha and we asked for directions again, this time at the village shop. The lady here kindly found us a guide who took us to the resurgence entrance. After scrambling down through boulders you end up in an active streamway that starts off about 1.3 m high and gradually diminishes as you progress with the water and mud getting deeper. A passage on the right, said to extend for about a kilometre, was soon passed. After a couple of hundred metres the roof gets a lot lower and the mud deepens to about 50 cm which makes the going very difficult. Eventually you reach a T junction with the stream coming in from the right. We headed left towards another entrance and then walked back around on the road to the resurgence.
This is a squalid cave – wet, low and muddy. We got very damp and covered in mud, much of which is grey dust from the nearby quarries. However, our guide, who did the trip without a light and mainly barefooted, only got wet up to mid-thigh and didn't appear to be particularly dirty after the trip. Surveying this cave will be a lot of fun, but at least the water is warm and there wasn't much wildlife. Whilst changing after the trip we had a visit from a couple of quarry workers. Despite the history of trouble these two gentlemen we simply amused that four foreigners had bothered to travel so far to get wet in a cave.
After the trip we were invited back to Ban Rong Ha were we where fed beer and offered a shower to clean up after the trip. Amongst the people we met was the daughter of the villager who had been murdered.
Chiang Rai References
Barlow, J.J. (n.d.) [Tham Mai Suai]; Janchitfah, S. (2003) [Tham Mae Ook Roo]; Wongruang, P. (2004) [Tham Mae Ook Roo]