The Blue Lagoon

     Today we set out for the blue lagoon, a natural swimming area with an amazing cave next to it.  When we started, we packed sandwiches from a street cart and water shoes to change into.  We rented some bikes and set out to find the blue lagoon.  We quickly found out that the brakes on my moms bike didn't work and that the bikes were about to fall apart, but we kept going.  A little way into the journey we came across a stream, as I set across it I lifted my feet to keep them dry.  The water was deeper than I expected and I stopped in the middle.  My feet dropped down to balance myself and soaked both of them.  With my shoes sopping wet I continued on.  The road was very bumpy with rocks everywhere.  In some parts it was all that I could do to hold on and hope that the bike wouldn't break.

     When we got there, we ate our sandwiches and then went to go and swim.  The blue lagoon looked like a normal river, but the water moved very slow and the water was blue (hence the name).  There was a rope swing and a tree to jump off of into the river so it was a lot of fun.  When we got really cold we got out and headed up to the cave, and when I say up I mean it.  We were hiking on a trail that would never be allowed in United States.  The trail was very steep and had a few bamboo handrails.  The hike was only 100 m, but it was steep so it felt like a lot longer.     
     When we got to the top I looked in the cave it had no paths or handrails at all, just an occasional red arrow to point you in the right direction.  We stumbled along and came to a Buddha statue.  There was a hole at the top of the cave and the sun shone down perfectly on the Buddha statue to make it shimmer in the sunlight.  As we went deeper and deeper into the cave it got darker and darker.  Luckily we had rented headlamps at the bottom of the trail.  We came to a massive cavern that was... well massive.  There were all sorts of cool cave things like stalactites and stalacmites.  We went deeper into the cave and on the side of the trail (and I use the word "trail" in the loosest of sense of the word) there was a deep hole that was big enough to easily fall down and all that marked it was a little sign that said "Danger".  when we got to the end of the cave we looked around and it was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.  There was a ton of cool cave things and there was nothing stopping you from getting to them, not even a tour guide.  We backtracked to the entrance of the cave and started the treacherous climb down.  One time on the way down, Joe grabbed on a bamboo handrail to steady himself, instead of holding him up the bamboo cracked which just goes to show the safety of the whole thing.  When we got down to the bottom we played in the water a little bit and then started the bike ride home.  It was easier on the way back, but it was still really hard.  On the way back we passed a stampede of cows, we slowed down and passed them with no incident.  The bike ride was 7 km there, but on the way back we took a shortcut to save us a quarter mile.  When we got back my shoulder were sore from the day before, my hands were sore from holding on to the bike, and everything else was sore too.

My dad on a rope swing

The Buddha statue

The trail

Stampede of cows

Joe on his bike