«No pain no gain». That was the tour guides’ go-to phrase

«No pain no gain». That was the tour guides’ go-to phrase for us today 😂. Why? Well we had quite the adventurous day. We were originally supposed to hike up a volcano, camp there, and then see the sunrise. But since it erupted we had to change plans.

Luckily it was still a fun day. We had to ride in standing buggies to get to the place, it was really fun because when we would go over bumps we would all scream and slide on top of each other. Some people even reached their hands up to grab mangos when we went under trees.

We kind of had no idea what we were getting ourselves into with the cave thing. But I saw helmets, boots, and harnesses… and then a pulley. Oh and not to mention, a massive 60m deep hole in the ground. We were lowered up and down with pure human strength in an old fashioned way.

The greenery was so lush, a true tropical paradise. But… the smell was another story. The cave was full of bat droppings and the air was very thick. But as we walked deeper into the muddy depths (I got mud in my boots, yes 😐) there was an opening. A perfect circular opening with light coming down like it was from heaven. Despite the smell, it was super surreal.

Afterwards we got to eat lunch that was folded in a banana leaf. Then off to part 2, river tubing! I have tubed a lot but almost everyone else had never even heard of it (I mean it’s not like you can tube in Norway anyways).

But it wasn’t ordinary tubing, it was in a cave! Had to walk barefoot to the river (the road was SO hot and the rocks were quite tumultuous). The cave was draped in stalagmites and stalactites, sleeping bats, and calcium crystals. Had to look out for bat droppings… Then we got to jump off a ledge into the water at the end and go through a waterfall.

Walked to a chicken satay place down the street and loaded up on skewers (I got 20 bite-sized ones). They didn’t know English so we had to use Google Translate, took a lot of communicating to get it! But it did not disappoint at all, super super tasty. I bought a bunch of bananas and sweet crackers to eat after 😋.

Happy Halloween! 🎃