Tham Lod - MH0001

Length 1666m Depth 20m
Grottocenter / carte

Location

Close to Ban Tham Lod, 9km north of Ban Soppong on a surface road, signposted from the H1095 slightly northeast of the market. The road ends at Tham Lod Nature Education Centre where there is a large car park and several food stalls. An excellent trail leads from here to the cave inflow entrance, 300m to the south. There is no entrance charge or artificial lighting system installed anywhjere in the cave. Guides with lanterns can be hired from the car park and bamboo rafts are available at the cave entrance. The RFD have recently announced their intention to charge visitors 40 to 200 baht per person in the near future. Martin Ellis - 09/04/2020

Description

Martin Ellis - 09/04/2020

The cave is open to visitors throughout the year, although at the height of the wet season the bridge across to the north chamber often gets washed away and it is not possible to wade or take a raft down the river to the outflow. This is a very impressive, extraordinarily heavily decorated through cave carrying the Nang Lang river...Lying just west of a pre-existing surface course of the Nam Lang the cave is developed on three levels. The main stream passage is about 20m wide and 20-30m high for most of the 600m length. Beyond the 30m wide, 10m high upstream entrance a large shelf a few metres above the stream leads after 120m to a side passage on the right leading up to Tham Sao Hin, a well decorated chamber dominated by a huge column and a superb vantage point from which to view the stream apssage. Directly across the river from Tham Sao Hin wooden ladders ascended to passages rising over large gours to the highly decorated Tham Song and Tham Tukkata, the later ending in chambers with high CO2 levels. Below, the walls and roof of the stream passage (Tham Neung) are almost entirely lined with stalactites, draperies and flowstone on a massive scale, best appreciated from one of the high level vantage points. It is necessary to wade across the stream in several places and in the wet season the lower part of the cave may become difficult to traverse...The downstream entrance is 30m high and wide, opening to an attractive vista of forest. A short distance inside this entrance ladders lead steeply up to a viewing platform with a wonderful view to the forest beyond, a fine site fom which to observe the flight of swifts into the cave at dusk each day. Behind this a passage in the dark zone (Tham Phi Man or Tham Sam) leads to about ten decaying coffins in an advanced state of vandalism.

Topography

Martin Ellis - 09/04/2020

The cave was surveyed by the Australian expeditions in 1983 and 1992. The location of the survey notes is unknown. DEHARVENG, LOUIS, ET AL. (1986) republished in ZEITOUN, VAL+RY; FORESTIER, HUBERT; NAKBUNLANG, SUPAPORN (2008) DILOKVANIT (2000) DUNKLEY, JOHN ROBERT; BRUSH, JOHN B. (ED.) (1986) SHOOCONGDEJ, RASMI (2000) WIGFALL, MARK (1988) - sketch survey by John Spies The cave has also been mapped by Thai Geographic.

Fauna

Martin Ellis - 09/04/2020

Angustopila tamlod (Panha et Burch, 1999) (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Pupilloidea, Vertiginidae) û type locality (Panha and Burch 1999) Elaphoidella intermedia Chappuis, 1931 (Arthropoda, Crustacea, Maxilliopoda, Harpacticoida, Canthocamptidae) (Watiroyram et al. 2015) Prokoenenia asiatica CondÚ, 1994 (Arthropoda, Arachnida, Palpigradi, Eukoenenioidea, Prokoeneniidae) (CondÚ 1994) Paratachycines (Paratachycines) thailandensis Gorochov, 2002 (Arthropoda, Insecta, Orthoptera, Rhaphidophoroidea, Raphidophoridae) (Gorochov 2002) Cyrtodactylus erythrops Bauer, Kunya, Sumontha, Niyomwan, Panitvong, Pauwels, Chanhome et Kunya, 2009 (Chordata, Reptilia, Squamata, Gekkonidae) û type locality (Bauer et al. 2009)

Documents

[Topo] Tham Lod 12/05/2019
Bibliography 09/04/2020
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History

The coffins have been dated to 1450BP+/-40 and 1240BP+/-90 (Grave et al. 1994) 1977 John Spies first visit 1983 Visited by Australians 1988-01-26 (L. Maffre, F. Pallier, C. Thouin, B. Tonnelier) 2007-12 (D. Brison, A. Brison) 2008-11-01 (M. Ellis, J. Dunkley, T. Bolger, Y. Sopha, S. Prommaviang, P. Sompilavong) Martin Ellis - 09/04/2020

Caves nearby

Distance (km)NameLength (m)Depth (m)
0.2Tham Lod Overhang - MH026920
0.5Tham Hair - MH01591000
0.8Cave MH0002 - MH0002
1.4Cave MH0024 - MH0024
1.6Coffin Cave MH0022 - MH0022100
1.6Big Knob Cave [MH0324]
1.8Coffin Cave MH0023 - MH0023
1.9Tham Nam Hu - MH024641010
1.9Cave NAL16 - MH005533