Off the beaten track

I didn't see any obvious turn on the way, so I was confused and had to pull over again. I asked villagers by the road. Finally, one seemed to know what I was asking about. He explained that there was a cave behind a fishpond in a lower valley that we had passed. "You have to find the fishpond first and go behind the house near the pond," he said.

We did exactly that and drove along a dirt lane hidden behind some dense bushes. Near the pond was a two-story house and a patch of land on which a farmer was harvesting vegetables. He told us to follow the path into the wood where "you can see the cave after a five-minute walk".

Through the wood and descending along the lane, we soon saw the huge cavern with not only a towering entrance, but also a wide exit on the opposite side.

The afternoon sunshine tinged part of the cave's inside wall. A huge stalagmite at the bottom of the cavern was partly covered with ferns. Swifts and bats circled around the sky framed by the cave and the forest, and their chirping made the hidden valley in front of the cave a little noisy.

It was truly a pleasant surprise to find such a massive natural wonder near a country road and behind a farm house.

We descended along the path into the cave, discovering that, because of the sunshine, a kind of beautiful white flower was in full bloom inside the cave.

When darkness began to fall, though, we had to leave.

Even though we still had two days left to explore the province, I knew that the cave would certainly be the highlight of our trip.