Rushh

If Neil,our caving guide,had not drawn our attention to the little depression in the thickly forested hillock we might have missed it altogether. We looked at the little cavern,a menacing looking black hole that punctured the rugged landscape,with misgiving . May be we should have settled for something safer and opted to visit the touristy stalactite and stalagmite caves of Mawnmai in Meghalaya in the North Eastern reaches of India. But no, in a moment of bravado,we declared that we wanted to go caving!

Are we going to crawl into that hole?’,we asked Neil who had already started to pull equipment out of hip backpack:bright orange Jumpsuits,helmets,head lamps…’Yes!’ He had apparently missed the concern in our voice. With business-like professionalism he handed us our caving kits. We realised that the time for fretting and worrying had lapsed and we steeled ourselves for the adventure ahead. Once we were all fitted out-we felt a little silly standing in the silent forest dressed up like coal miners-Neil gave us pre-caving instructions.

First he informed us that our gear,stupid as we might feel in it , was essential once we entered the bowels of the earth. He then reassured us that we would have no problem breathing as limestone rock is porous and the caves are well-ventilated. He warned us about wandering off and advised us to stay together at all times. “There will be a little wall climbing,a bit of slithering around and make sure you test each step before transfering your entire weight onto it,”hea said. With that he switched on the miners’ lights attached to our helmets and invited us to follow him.

From the dark:
We dropped down on all fours and crawled into the narrow little cavern,the spot light on our helmets lighting the path in front of us. We ducked under a row of jagged rocks that clawed at us; thankfully our helmets blunted the bite of the few that did manage to strike. Soon we arrived at what looked like a dead end but Neil pointed to a narrow cavity above our heads.We eased ourselves into the opening and literally slithered through it; our bodies forming S-curves as we pulled and pushed up with our hands,nee and feet.

Our efforts were rewarded when we emerged into a passage where we were able to stand upright. Our reliet,however,was short-lived when we realised that we would have to scale up the face of a small cliff(in the glow of our headlamps it looked menacing and about twice its actual size) to reach the next level of the cave. After a very surreal subterranean rock climbing adventure,gripping the rugged surface of the cave with the tips of our fingers and hoisting ourselves up till our feet found a toehold, we found ourselves crawling on all fours once again.