Hi all,
after our return from 2.000 km in north Laos on two Baja, here some feedback on the Chom Ong Cave.
If one once found the entrance to te Chom ong road, the way is easy to follow.
The road seems to be build new as small dirt road in the last years. You just have to follow the "main road".
The first km were a little bit washed out from the last rainy season. Then it became better since actually some heavy machines were repairing the dirt road.
Without much off-road experience it took us about 90 minutes from Oudomxay to reach Ban Chom Ong including some foto stops.
In the center of the village is a large information board in english and lao about the cave visit.
We parked there to use the bilingual information as attempt to translate, what was the purpose of our visit.
We could not figure out, which building is used as lodge.
It took several attempt to find a guide. We were finally guided by a guy who called himself "Tian". His house is one of the first in the village, even before the last river crossing. His english was quiet poor.
He only had a torge and took us about one hour through rice field, woods and some river crossings to the cave. Tour through the cave took about 90 minutes.
So the tour can be easyly done within one Day from Oudomxay.
Since the trail to the cave entrance is also marked on midnightmappers gps map, it would be also mpossible to find the way by oneself.
The trail to the entrance that starts north of the village is meanwhile in large parts a dirtroad. Only at the beginning of that road there is actually one rivercrossing which does not have a fort actually. So acces by motorbike is not possible at the moment. Since the road is quiat large after that, I guess that the ford will be build soon.
This road ends at the river. From there it is only some hundret meters to the entrance of the cave. Our guide used this way to walk back.
Within the cave orientation on the first few 100 meters is quiet easy. You just have to follow the cables of the lighning system. The cave itself formely was a river, so that you can easyly walk inside the cave, nearly flat. Only few passages require some climbing (about 1 m high ;-)). When more climbing was necessary we returned to the entrance.
Food and water we brought from Oudomxay. There is a small shop in he village, but only with a limited offer.
Harald