The way is legend. Clay, mud and cow manure mix together in a soup of epic slime. Leeches roam the path. And they jump!
But they can't jump your mind protests. And so I once believed but no longer. Curling their bodies like some blood-sucking mutant of an inch-worm they hurl themselves at bare ankles slipping past through the muddy shitty clay cocktail. We spin on like spastics; blood creeps from bitten wounds, onwards, through a muck sprung from the bowels of hell itself. On till we curse the inability to stand, unable to stop disappearing up to our calves in pits with unknown bases, sticks to slash and shite to stink. On with fresh leeches torn off in disgusted haste.
Yet we bear smiles, all of us, smiles at the crap and laughter for the ludicrous. We paid for this? And so we did, at the trailhead.
Then the destination, a cave, yet again a cave; it sometimes seems that Laos may have more caves than people.
Into the gap now, down the slippery rocks, a cool fresh creek washes the blood and shit away. The cavern calls ever deeper, up to my waist now in the darkness. Up to my neck, dare I swim on? Hesitation stares into the darkest shadow.